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One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

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Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#51

Post by [deleted] »

nomel wrote: post #31
iancmceachern wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont agree. It's more about the relative income from the warehouse workers to the CEO. Even if the post office has the exact same percentage of workers on food stamps, I would argue that because the postmaster general makes so much less than Amazon leadership that Amazon has the privilege and ability to do better, and still run a profitable business. It's about profit, and sharing it more equitably.

For anyone curious about the math: The Amazon CEO pay was $212 million in 2021. There are 700k warehouse workers. If the CEO put 99% of their pay to the warehouse workers, each would get an about $300/year, or $25/month more.

[deleted]

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#52

Post by astrange »

lesuorac wrote: post #37
jonathankoren wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the point of a job, if you can’t live on it? If you feel anger when reading that the largest and most profitable companies in the world won’t pay a living wage, the. You should be. There isn’t two side to simple greed and exploitation.

You could just find a job to be fun. Eventually there will be jobs not worth paying people to do; subsidizing that at the government level seems fine (albeit not capitalistic) but that does require taxation (not necessarily on the higher paying jobs) to cover the shortfall.

Part of the reason for minimum wages is that by eliminating bad jobs (the ones seemingly not worth paying people for), it can save time and effort for workers who accidentally take those jobs when they could have found better ones. This is called search effects.

Another related one is that it can increase your competitiveness with other countries, basically by making employers stop wasting time and think of more productive things for people to do.

But the main reason they can help is that, insofar as employers are monopsonies (sole payers of wages), they often literally don't know what wages they "should" pay because they don't have any incentive to find out, and in that case setting a higher minimum wage actually causes everyone to become more employed.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#53

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

mountainb wrote: post #35

This is how our system works. The government subsidizes corporate low wage work, and everyone pats themselves on the back for being so enormously virtuous, truly the most wonderful people ever to have graced the earth. The circuitous redistribution is a feature and not a bug of the system. It prevents competition, which makes shareholders happy. It also provides a minimum standard of care for workers, who would other…

Who bears the blame for this though? If social programs are cut then voters freak. If the price of goods increase then voters freak. If taxes increase then voters freak.

It seems that we get exactly what we vote for.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#54

Post by dantheman »

not2b wrote: post #50

If workers need government aid to make basic ends meet, it is the employer, not the employee, that is on welfare, subsidized by taxpayers and government borrowing.

That is not correct - a person with no skills who has 10 kids will never be able to support themselves via a job. It is welfare for them.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#55

Post by SheepSlapper »

WillAdams wrote: post #16
sandworm101 wrote: post #4

What percentage of non-amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps? We all love to hate Amazon, but such statistics are meaningless without context.

~12.6% per: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/food-stamp-... >More than 42 million Americans receive a federal stipend for food through the program formerly known as food stamps.

I believe the question was "what is the rate of food stamp program eligibility for warehouse workers, regardless of their employer". Which is an interesting question, are there statistics for this which are broken down by profession?

Your link shows that 1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps, which is interesting (and a surprise to me) but it's missing the point of the question above. What's the rate of workers on FS in any given warehouse across the country?

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#57

Post by wcarron »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #53
mountainb wrote: post #35

This is how our system works. The government subsidizes corporate low wage work, and everyone pats themselves on the back for being so enormously virtuous, truly the most wonderful people ever to have graced the earth. The circuitous redistribution is a feature and not a bug of the system. It prevents competition, which makes shareholders happy. It also provides a minimum standard of care for workers, who would other…

Who bears the blame for this though? If social programs are cut then voters freak. If the price of goods increase then voters freak. If taxes increase then voters freak. It seems that we get exactly what we vote for.

I think your question carries the seeds of the answer within it.

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#58

Post by astrange »

readyman wrote: post #48
nomel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this related to amazon though? It sounds like the blame should be fully put on the federal/local governments for the minimum wage that they've set.

The politicians are paid by the capitalists to keep minimum wages low.

Capitalists (large business owners) generally pay higher wages than the alternative, small/family business owners. Eg Walmart/Amazon have better benefits than an equivalent small business, unless you're the owner of that small business.

But also, wages generally go up: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

(This is "income", which is a superset of wages. I didn't link wages because those are confusing, average wages go up during recessions because the lower earning people get laid off.)

Re: One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid

#60

Post by gruez »

mountainb wrote: post #35

This is how our system works. The government subsidizes corporate low wage work, and everyone pats themselves on the back for being so enormously virtuous, truly the most wonderful people ever to have graced the earth. The circuitous redistribution is a feature and not a bug of the system. It prevents competition, which makes shareholders happy. It also provides a minimum standard of care for workers, who would other…

>It prevents competition

How does food stamps/medicaid prevent competition?

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