Perhaps depressed wages are partly to blame for the lack of automation in the current economy. If there is labor scarcity it may unlock new innovations by forc

Perhaps depressed wages are partly to blame for the lack of automation in the current economy. If there is labor scarcity it may unlock new innovations by forcing market participants to find more productive uses of labor. Labor force participation has been falling for a long time as labor sellers (employees) fail to find an adequate price for their labor from employers (the buyer). Many economists assumed this was the fault of the labor seller for not having skills attractive to buyers. It's also possible that in certain segments employers were using labor in-efficiently, or simply miss-pricing the value of a worker. Which is a long winded way of saying that a higher minimum wage may bring more labor into the market, while simultaneously forcing businesses to leverage automation to improve the productivity of said labor.