Businessfag here… Amazon's wage increase had nothing to do with Amazon caring about it's worker bees… rather, it was another shot at big box retailers to force them to raise wages which further cuts into their bottom line. Sears filing for BK… just saw another Target store closing in my area… it's working.
Bezo's talking about "Universal Basic Income" along with the other tech giants is a way to soft sell the massive human capital layoffs that automation is and will bring to the workplace which, companies like Amazon will be the first to enact. Another reason why the wage hike is to ensure Amazon starts phasing out the worker drones and hiring only top level talent to begin the transition to a fully automated logistics operation.