This is a silly take. There can in fact be a labor shortage and there sometimes is. It's quite possible if everyone started bidding up wages this would still be

This is a silly take. There can in fact be a labor shortage and there sometimes is. It's quite possible if everyone started bidding up wages this would still be the case. Witness fast food joints basically doubling their wages over the past few years and still having "help wanted" signs in the windows. And you're acting as though any level of wages is economically sensible, and that it wouldn't kill consumers to have a 50% wage increase passed on. Yes, it probably would. Which is why it's good they're replacing them with automation rather than continuing to lean on illegals. If a job is fully replaceable with automation, why do you believe it should simply be "made easier" with no cuts to wages, keeping people employed for no particular reason? I think a better discussion is what we can do with the growing chunk of the population who are economically useless and refuse to pick up new skills to make themselves useful.