Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson has uncovered a dual threat to entry-level workers: artificial intelligence displacing jobs from above while higher minimum wages accelerate automation from below. His August 2025 study revealed generative AI tools caused a 13% relative employment drop for early-career workers in AI-exposed fields like software engineering, even after controlling for broader disruptions. Now, in a new NBER working paper co-authored with researchers including J.

Frank Li and Javier Miranda, Brynjolfsson's team finds minimum wage hikes drive industrial robot adoption. A 10% minimum wage increase correlates with an 8% higher likelihood of manufacturing firms adopting robots, based on Census data tracking imports from Japan, Germany, and Switzerland. This paints a grim picture: AI squeezes workers from the top, while wage policies push automation up from the factory floor.