On Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council raised the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour via an ordinance that slowly “cranks-up wages for the next five years.”

As a result, a notable 59 percent of employers in the Los Angeles area now plan to make investments in automation technology, which would eliminate the need for them to hire a bunch of overly paid hourly workers.

“Hiring, which it’s a bit better (this year), is not where things are growing — they’re growing in technology,” explained Tracy Rafter, founding Chief Executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation.

She added that this focus on automated technology is occurring because “people cost so much more than technology over time.”

Yeah, especially when liberal politicians force business owners to pay their employees unreasonable wages.

Liberals seem astounded by this burgeoning trend, but they really ought not be. The same thing happened when Chicago raised its minimum wage to $13 per hour.

The United Center indoor sports arena, home to the Chicago Bulls, decided to replace its bartenders with an automated DraftServ machine that doles out Budweiser, Bud Light, Goose Island 312 or Stella Artois to customers.

Even McDonalds, which currently employs millions of Americans, is going down the path of automation by testing out an automated order machine that could conceivably one day replace most of its cashiers.

The saddest part about this whole story is that, according to Breitbart, Los Angeles is already known as “America’s Poorest City.”

Unfortunately, the City Council’s decision to raise the minimum wage is likely only going to make its poorest citizens even more indigent than they already are — by putting many of them out of work completely.

You would think that liberals might have learned their lesson by now, but apparently they’re very slow learners.