People who browse HN should be some of the biggest advocates for this wage increase, as it's our efforts in automation that is creating such huge profit centers

People who browse HN should be some of the biggest advocates for this wage increase, as it's our efforts in automation that is creating such huge profit centers for these corporations. Yet instead of these profits being redistributed throughout the business they're being funneled into financial schemes to inflate stock prices. The entire point of automation is to give the average person less work, yet the capture of the benefits has already begun by those at the top. Make no mistake, this fight will eventually end up on our doorstep as well, minimum wage increases are merely the first salvo. If we back down now we are only harming our future selves when this inane startup culture of "dedicate your every waking hour to making the VC's rich" becomes the defacto MO of tech. If neccessarily be completely selfish and realize that an increase in the minimum wage will directly cause an increase in your very own salary... if for the only reason that automating these more expensive jobs will become that much more valuable. But even if that doesn't convince you, the economic argument is pretty simple. Minimum wage hasn't even kept up with inflation, much less cost of living in this country. You don't have to give a flying crap about someone's "lifestyle" to understand that creating a class of workers that will forever be trapped by poverty is inherently bad for anyone without enough capital squirreled away to live off the interest. If you want a healthy economy you can't have insane gaps between just the middle class and those earning the lowest wage (not even going into the gaps between higher earners). At the very least you have to realize that your responsibility as a citizen of the US (sorry non-US people, we still like you!) is to other citizens, not the corporations. Edit: I'll quickly address those arguing that the increase in wage will put certain businesses out of profitability: In startup land we have no sympathy for those who cannot raise/earn enough money to pay the costs for quality engineers, why should we have any sympathy for a business that cannot continue it's business model in the face of increasing it's lowest paid workers' wage? I've not infrequently seen blatant scorn towards those startups with terrible business models... let's not become advocates for MBAs who exhibit the same kind of ineptitude.