Yes. And, based on lifestyle and living standards, America's poor are part of Earth's wealthiest 1%.

We have already taken care of the actual basic needs of 99% of our domestic population. Food, clothing, shelter, pottable water. These are, essentially, solved problems in the US. Those who don't have access to these things are, for the most part, the insane (released from assylums once their insurance runs out and they are no longer profitable to detain), those addicted to hard drugs (heroin, et al; for the most part unable to care for themselves or anyone else), and those who choose to live "outside the system". There are exceptions, but they exist in very, very tiny numbers.

When we start adding to the list of necessities, things like medical care, higher education, a private house, well-paid employment (all of which were added during the Roosevelt years as "basic rights" and "necessities"), even private transportation (I've seen car-ownership listed as a "right"), then, no, we don't have those covered. But those are only necessities according to politicians who want to buy votes, and the people whose votes are being bought. Thus, modern Socialisms greatest contribution to history (besides being the only system of government that has killed more people than Black Plague did - check the numbers, this is not an exaggeration), is adding these things to the traditional list of "bread and circuses", and for the same end-purpose.

Most of the rest of the world (excluding industrialized regions like Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and a few others), suffers from a much more actual "poverty", where basic necessities are not met. Where starvation, water-born diseases, involuntary exposure injury (lack of adequate shelter/clothing), are real, everyday things.

Then there are the places that are even worse than that. Haiti, for example, is listed as being sub-Third World.

And a few places in between, like South Africa, Colombia, and some others, where industrialization has moved some of the population out of actual poverty, but where substantial percentages are still suffering badly, or where political situations (continuing aftermath of Apartheid, for example) are magnifying the suffering and poverty beyond where industry would otherwise mitigate/eliminate it.

So, to the point, don't worry so much about what effect automation and technological efficiency might be depriving someone of things beyond necessities. If you want to feel bad about something, or (much better) take action to effectively do something about horrific situations, focus your attention on the places with real, serious, deadly needs, and on the people who are facing death or actual privation. The guy who's been on unemployment and food stamps for a couple of years, while that's definitely a bad thing, is in much less need of all of our attention, than the people who simply won't eat this week, or who are watching their family members die of Cholera or whose children have Malaria.

We Americans can argue endlessly over whether public employee union members are over- or under-paid. While the French argue about whether retirement should be 60 or 62, and the Greeks about whether they should actually be required to pay back the loans their government has taken. Every minute spent on impedimentia like that is a minute not spent on solving the true depths of human misery our fellow human beings suffer every day.

To those who will inevitable froth at the mouth and claim that I'm saying "let America's poor suffer" (which always comes up), I will issue the same challenge I always do: Spend a week in Port Au Prince (Haiti), then spend a week in South Central Los Angeles. Then make the decision which one you would rather spend the rest of your life in if those were the only two choices you had. Nobody ever takes me up on that, or even tries to come close to it. But they will claim I'm heartless because I even mention it.