[ww-picard-do]

> And that argument is almost always silly. All of these big companies are devoting resources all the time to reducing payroll. It is banged into their heads in MBA schools that "payroll is your biggest expense", and that is a bad thing. With that mindset they are always looking to reduce payroll.

Yes, this strawman you have created is a silly argument. The size of the payroll has nothing to do with it.

The decision to automate or not is decided by profitability. If a worker's wages is less than the cost of automation, then worker is not automated. But once wages exceed the cost of automation the worker will be replaced. So, increasing wages will lead to more automation.