On Automation,
This is fact is one of the reasons hiring the minimum wage is so deadly for unskilled laborers.
The more basic and repetitive a task the easier and cheaper it is to automate it. While the more complex a task the harder and more expensive it is to automate it.
Now the more basic tasks are the ones usually done by minimum wage employees.
My company is located in a state that is gradually raising the minimum wage to 15$ an hour.
While I actually was paying more then minimum wage I was not paying 15$ an hour nor can I afford to pay people 15$ an hour to do the most basic work that I have because it will throw my entire compensation structure off.
As such I am now looking into purchasing the robotics needed to automate much of the basic repetitive tasks and will lay off employees on the lower end when it is finalized.
In my personal case raising the minimum wage in the long term will actually cost jobs.
It will however only play out on the margins for me since financing the equipment will cost more or less the same in the short term but it will provide me with a degree of security and insulation from future wage hikes and hopefully in the long term will save me money, even if in the shorter it would not have been the best investment had the minimum wage stayed the same