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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

#131

Post by drivebyhooting »

RIMR wrote: post #124
Seattle3503 wrote: post #100

A lot of comments have the assumption that it is corporations responsibility to look after people. That philosophy is how we get healthcare tied to one's employer. That approach attaches workers to their employer and makes switching jobs harder. I think it is better to see it as the government's responsibility to take care of it citizens. Medicaid, food stamps, and the negative income tax represents this approach. We…

I think that government assistance should come universally. We should establish a minimum standard of living. Everyone should get food stamps - enough to survive. If you want, you can eat cheap store brand food for free year-round, or you can spend your entire balance at the beginning of each month at restaurants and artisan grocers because you make enough to afford to buy what you want with your own money when it's…

Wouldn’t this greatly increase inflation? Look at post Covid rise in the cost of literally every humdrum item.

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

#132

Post by AnthonyMouse »

VS1999 wrote: post #94
no_wizard wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government subsidizes corporate low wage work But importantly only the lowest of the low wages There is a huge swath of workers that can't get benefits like food stamps or medicaid because they don't qualify via the means testing formula and they can't really afford to live where they live, afford medical insurance etc. Its those folks that have it the worst, IMO. Cost of living keeps you from building any wealt…

>To add insult to injury, means testing[2] often costs more than the cost of fraud in social benefit programs! Not to mention, the biggest fraudsters with Medicaid are providers not recipients. Intuitively, I'd expect fraud to go up (at least to some degree) as means testing goes down like a differential equation. The depressing part of this is that it doesn't matter what is actually true, or what either of us are co…

"Eliminate means testing" doesn't mean that you stop verifying if someone qualifies for the program, it means that you stop imposing conditions on qualifying for the program, i.e. turn it into a tax credit that everybody gets unconditionally, and adjust rates to compensate.

In principle you can do this without affecting the budget at all -- if there is a benefit that phases out at, say, 20% up to $30,000 in income, this is equivalent to paying the benefit unconditionally and increasing the marginal tax rate by 20% in the same income range. All it does is eliminate the application paperwork.

In practice the problem is that there are multiple overlapping programs like this, so the poor aren't paying a 20% marginal rate (on top of any formal taxes), it's more like 60-80% and in some cases it even exceeds 100%. This is a poverty trap. But to get out of it while balancing the budget you'd have to use a lower total phase out rate, requiring higher marginal rates on people who make more money. These people -- as much upper middle-class doctors and computer programmers as Jeff Bezos -- then object to this, and so here we are.

Of course, another way to do it would be to cut some other government spending and use the money for this.

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

#133

Post by gruez »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #75
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We collectively bear the blame for allowing a system where government subsidizes shareholders and the wealthiest owners of these companies by not paying a living wage. In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to a…

>In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to answer.

If this is a "subsidy" to Amazon, what do you think would happen if they were pulled? Would amazon be forced to raise wages, or would the wages stay the same (because labor supply and demand is still the same) and the people starve instead?

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

#134

Post by astrange »

drozycki wrote: post #70
astrange wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, it's mostly a sign that benefits are working. Giving workers benefits /increases/ their compensation because it increases their negotiating power. This means they're earning more than they otherwise would. Not less. If it was less, that would mean benefits are bad and we should take them away!

You seem to think that healthcare is just like any other fringe benefit that employers and employees may mutually agree to in the employment market. But the US has a (deeply flawed) form of “universal healthcare” where the employer is required to provide the benefit. This mandate goes back to the New Deal era when capitalists were willing to accept such provisions if it allowed them to avoid a communist revolution, w…

Aren't we talking about Medicaid and food stamps here? Middle class health insurance is indeed an employer subsidy in the US (and it's bad), but Medicaid isn't.

Part of the reason we still have this system is that unions like being able to provide healthcare as a benefit though.

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

#135

Post by wkat4242 »

Being on public healthcare is not really a shame though. It's like totally normal here in Europe :P And pretty good too. I'm glad I don't have any worry about my healthcare, the risk of insane bills, that I might lose expensive cover if I get fired (which is in itself also a lot less likely as there's no "at will" here) etc. It's just a solved problem. Yeah it costs us some taxes but it's not as insanely expensive as in the US (in fact I probably pay less tax than a US citizen pays in monthly health insurance).

I think state healthcare is pretty ideal.

Food stamps though, that's not cool.

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

#136

Post by toomuchtodo »

gruez wrote: post #133
toomuchtodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We collectively bear the blame for allowing a system where government subsidizes shareholders and the wealthiest owners of these companies by not paying a living wage. In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to a…

>In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to answer. If this is a "subsidy" to Amazon, what do you think would happen if they were pulled? Would amazon be forced to raise wages, or would the wages stay the same (b…

This is a a false dilemma. Force corporations to raise wages, continue to provide social safety nets (so basic needs are met), and if there is a gap, raise taxes in a progressive fashion. There is enough wealth to not configure the system in this manner; to continue to do so is a choice. It's just a big spreadsheet, you're arguing over a cell or two, I'm arguing over the function result and working backwards from there.

Otherwise, we admit we're just fine with the current setup and that is who we are. We prefer the human suffering for magic numbers in a database.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ijiLqfXP0

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-45

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

#137

Post by paxys »

This is a nuanced discussion that is always derailed by the usual "down with evil corporations!!" rhetoric.

Let's say there are a thousand people on food stamps, getting $2000/mo from the government. A company comes along and says "we will employ all thousand people part-time for $1000/mo, and so the government now only has to pay them $1000/mo in assistance". Did the company do a good thing for society?

What if the company had instead said "we will employ 500 people full-time and pay them $2000/mo, so now the government only has to take care of the remaining 500"? Is that better or worse?

Or what if the company only employed a hundred people and paid them $10000/mo so they could live a good life, at the expense of the rest?

If one of the employees had 8 dependents and another had none, should they both get the same salary for the same work? What if it isn't enough for raising 8 kids?

Or if none of these options are palatable should the company and its warehouse not be allowed to exist at all? How does the government generate tax revenue for social services in the first place then?

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

#138

Post by hoosieree »

massysett wrote: post #121
massysett wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon took the CEO’s salary and reduced it to zero and distributed the savings to every line employee, how much money would each line employee get?

Just to come up with a ballpark, I pulled some numbers from Google. Perhaps Amazon has 700,000 warehouse workers in the United States. CEO Andy Jassy's total compensation package in 2021 was about $212 million, though it dropped to $1.3 million the next year. So $212 million divided by 700,000 is about $303 for a warehouse employee for one year. Not close to enough to get anyone off food stamps.

Headline says 1/3 of those 700k are on food stamps. Would an extra $900/year be enough?

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

#139

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

gruez wrote: post #133
toomuchtodo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We collectively bear the blame for allowing a system where government subsidizes shareholders and the wealthiest owners of these companies by not paying a living wage. In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to a…

>In this case, these are Amazon government subsidies by way of the disadvantaged. "Why are consumers receiving low prices and shareholder profits more important than workers receiving a wage they can survive on?" seems to be a question no one wants to answer. If this is a "subsidy" to Amazon, what do you think would happen if they were pulled? Would amazon be forced to raise wages, or would the wages stay the same (b…

I wonder if social programs were pulled then people would push harder for changes, unions, benefits, etc. As it stands now the social programs keep people pacified.

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

#140

Post by educasean »

_ache_ wrote: post #114
devd00d wrote: post #64

People should take a history lesson from France. Let them eat cake.

Can you elaborate? What did France do exactly? Apart from having a minimal (but working) welfare system. For several decades, liberal policies have been driving down the welfare system and the minimum wage. Macron is definitively trying to put a end to the french social welfare system.

I assume the original comment was calling for a revolution
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