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Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

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Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#51

Post by vorpalhex »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #41
vorpalhex wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A minimum wage of $7/hr in the Bay Area or NYC is useless. That won't cover transportation. $14/hr is still, basically, the same amount of more or less useless. In, to quote Ken White, "pluck-my-banjo" Texas, that's a perfectly fine and livable sum. A dollar or two raise and you can probably start saving up for a house realistically. $14/hr is kingly. Amazon warehouses are usually not in banjo-playing rural areas, bu…

Can we please end this charade of pretending a $14 wage is kingly anywhere? I mean even the whole idea of 'banjo-playing areas'? Come on. I find it really gross the way people that have good jobs and have never left urban/suburban environments typecast the rest of the country.

That's about $30k a year. That's comfortable in areas within an hour or two of my town.

I made that amount when I was in college, in the DC area, and most certainly survived just fine. Had I lived more rural in an area where entry level homes are And the banjo-playing is mostly a joke, especially in Texas. That being said, as an avid hiker, I spend a significant chunk of my time in places best labeled as "Nowhere, really".

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#52

Post by smt88 »

colek42 wrote: post #39

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

> There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth.

Who thinks this? I don't know any adult who is that naive.

> People are paid what the market will bear.

In many industries, the employer side of the market is vastly more powerful than the employee. The employer can just pass on an employee asking for too much money; an employee may be facing weeks without a job, which is difficult for most people to afford.

In those situations, the market can bear quite a bit more than it has to, which is the reason minimum-wage requirements don't kill most industries.

> For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it.

That's true if the government is protecting the employee with a safety nets, like welfare and ACA, and laws, like COBRA. A better-paid employee could save more money and provide their own safety net, as many high earners do with rainy-day accounts, investments, passive income, etc.

Because Amazon employees aren't necessarily saving enough to afford to build their own safety nets, taxpayers are effectively subsidizing Amazon.

> As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

I'm not sure this is apples-to-apples because military benefits are substantial, and the most major downside to military service (the risk of being sent into armed combat) is very difficult to put into monetary terms.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#53

Post by maxerickson »

sputniq wrote: post #3

So much for equality. I guess jeff bezos just thinks it normal

It's driven by Amazon's low prices just as much as it is driven by Bezos' wealth. Customers get the benefit of the low prices.

I'm not saying that to congratulate Amazon, I'm pointing out that there are more people involved than Amazon shareholders and employees, people who apparently put low prices ahead of any concerns they have over compensation at Amazon.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#54

Post by goshx »

matheus2740 wrote: post #43
goshx wrote: post #19

Worldwide. No idea if they operate in Brazil, but using it as an example, USD $28,446 in Brazil is a great salary.

The thing is, direct conversions do not really work. I don't think they operate much in Brazil, but if they did, the salaries would be adjusted to the Brazillian reality (minimum wage, average person income, purchasing power, etc), so in reality, it would be much less than 28 grand USD. The more real conversion is to use a purchasing power index, such as the big-mac index. Using the 2018 data for the big-mac index, t…

The point is, we don't know how the data was presented by Amazon. I'd expect that the wages reported would be in USD to show how much it actually costs to the company in the United States, and not some weird index.

If they pay, say, R$ 30,000.00/year, I doubt they'd report anything other than the direct conversion to USD.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#55

Post by randyrand »

colek42 wrote: post #39

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

Here's the thing, people are worth what the market will bear.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#56

Post by sol_remmy »

$14 an hour is not as bad as you think. Median nursing salary in England = 23300 pounds = 32300 usd. So the median amazon warehouse worker makes 87% of what the median nurse makes in the U.K. Is that really so bad?

Source on median salary: https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R...

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#57

Post by lotsofpulp »

colek42 wrote: post #39

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

The definition of what something is worth is what the market will bear.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#58

Post by randyrand »

DimitarIbra9 wrote: post #48
unpopular42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos' duty is to keep costs low and profits high and indeed he does his job well, just look at their stock.

and exploit employees.

Exploit = "make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource)". Sounds like a very good thing for a company to do. No waste.

Re: Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

#60

Post by songzme »

In the bay area, I'm currently paying 5 people 2k / mo and I've been paying them that much for about a year. They are incredibly hardworking and work about 12 hours / day. I mainly recruit from CalWorks (a public assistance program that provides cash aid and services to eligible families that have a child(ren) in the home), which is the same place that Amazon gets alot of their warehouse staff from.

Every-time I pay them, I feel a sense of guilt/discomfort. 2k / month is really hard to live on in the bay area, especially when you have kids. I want to pay them more, but its all I can afford with my current salary.

By "Work" they are learning and teaching each other JavaScript (Node, React, ReactNative, Vue, Redux, GraphQL) and building out some of my ideas. Hopefully they can find a job as a software engineer soon, it would change their lives permanently for the better!

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