One-third of Amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps or Medicaid • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by torginus » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

no_wizard wrote: post #73

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…

>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…

> means testing[2] often costs more than the cost of fraud in social benefit programs!

This is like saying that since robbery is rare, the cost of permitting robbery is lower than funding the police force, thus we should defund the police.

Robbery is rare because the police exists

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

#212

Post by schmidtleonard » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #198

michael9423 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's the opposite. At the level of automation we've reached, labor is worth, per hour, way more than 100 years ago. The problem is just that this value is siphoned off by shareholders who do not have to work to receive the monetary value that should go to the worker. So the issue is simply in how corporations are set up and how the stock market is designed. The entire system is designed to drain as much val…

worth of labor is not the worth of product/service. Amazon picks the places where it can hire extremely cheap labor, because usually they are the only game in town. (monopsony market for labor.) it happened without automation and happens with automation too. of course it's on society to help those who are stuck in these unfortunately places.

> monopsony market for labor

Yes, when the inelastic aggregate supply of labor (expressed as an explicit work quota or expressed as an implicit work quota equal to cost of living divided by wages) exceeds the demand for labor, capitalism turns what should be a happy situation (let's all work a bit less!) into a horror show where working hard for scraps is a privilege and rotting in unemployment is the norm.

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

#213

Post by k8svet » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

Seattle3503 wrote: post #119

scarface_74 wrote: post #47

Trying to balance my bleeding heart and pro capitalism free market proclivities… Let the market decide how much employees get paid and increase taxes on corporations to fund a social safety net and remove loopholes. Also make any state tax incentives that a state gives a corporation to locate there taxable on the federal level.

I agree with this. It is societies responsibility, through their elected government, to take care of people. If we need to support people more, we raise taxes and provide more support via the government. Holding the employer as responsible leads to things like employer provided healthcare, which ties people more strongly to their employer. Weakening the ties between employee and employer makes the workforce more dyna…

How though? We raise corporate taxes on every corporation? We somehow target those with a certain percentage of employees on government subsidies?

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

#214

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:23 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #198

michael9423 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's the opposite. At the level of automation we've reached, labor is worth, per hour, way more than 100 years ago. The problem is just that this value is siphoned off by shareholders who do not have to work to receive the monetary value that should go to the worker. So the issue is simply in how corporations are set up and how the stock market is designed. The entire system is designed to drain as much val…

worth of labor is not the worth of product/service. Amazon picks the places where it can hire extremely cheap labor, because usually they are the only game in town. (monopsony market for labor.) it happened without automation and happens with automation too. of course it's on society to help those who are stuck in these unfortunately places.

> Amazon picks the places where it can hire extremely cheap labor, because usually they are the only game in town

That only works for some of their locations. They are limited by the need for their distribution centers to be in good proximity to the customers they deliver to. In my area, that means their largest distribution center is in one of the more expensive areas of the city. And the other big one is in a less-nice area that is probably still fairly expensive because it's close to the center of the metro area.

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

#215

Post by sangnoir » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:24 PM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #129

Here's the thing. This is going to happen to everyone, as in, no person will be valuable enough via the contribution of their labor to survive without subsidies. At the level of automation we've reached in society, low-skilled labor is worth, per hour, a very small amount. As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility. The only way around this is to let those people starve…

> As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility

Who's going to subscribe to Prime and buy stuff when everyone is poor? The Walmart/Amazon wage strategy only works if the rest of society doesn't defect too. Henry Ford understood that his workers were also consumers.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

atleastoptimal wrote: post #129

Here's the thing. This is going to happen to everyone, as in, no person will be valuable enough via the contribution of their labor to survive without subsidies. At the level of automation we've reached in society, low-skilled labor is worth, per hour, a very small amount. As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility. The only way around this is to let those people starve…

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by missedthecue » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

Fauntleroy wrote: post #165

Noble6 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon Warehouse positions all pay well above minimum wage, in every state. They also offer benefits. Concluding Amazon isn’t paying enough, because a large portion of their workforce qualifies for food stamps, is the wrong conclusion.

If you knew someone working at an Amazon Warehouse position who needed to use government benefits to get by, would you consider them "well" or even "fairly" paid?

They either aren't working very many hours or they have a lot of dependents. There is no other way to legally qualify for government benefits even at the lowest wages Amazon pays.

If you have several children and are a single parent, should Amazon pay you 2x or 3x your childless coworkers, just to keep you off of government support?

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

#218

Post by GeoAtreides » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

FrankyHollywood wrote: post #204

atleastoptimal wrote: post #129

Here's the thing. This is going to happen to everyone, as in, no person will be valuable enough via the contribution of their labor to survive without subsidies. At the level of automation we've reached in society, low-skilled labor is worth, per hour, a very small amount. As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility. The only way around this is to let those people starve…

> At the level of automation we've reached in society We have been automating work for many centuries. And after a hundred years Keynes prediction [1] still isn't reality, somehow we keep finding ways of keeping ourselves busy :) [1] https://www.npr.org/2015/08/13/432122637/keynes-predicted-we...

Have we also had for centuries a small glass brick that we can point at things and have the things described (by something that's not human) in real time? And then have that something tells us what do with those things to achieve a goal?

Maybe, just maybe, this time is different.

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

#219

Post by vaidhy » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

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.

If income taxes increase, then voters freak. We can increase the corporate tax, ban share buybacks, impose limits on the executive to non-executive pay, tax wealth etc, which will freak out the richest, but will benefit the society better.

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

#220

Post by hi-v-rocknroll » Wed, May 22, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

skhunted wrote: post #144

atleastoptimal wrote: post #129

Here's the thing. This is going to happen to everyone, as in, no person will be valuable enough via the contribution of their labor to survive without subsidies. At the level of automation we've reached in society, low-skilled labor is worth, per hour, a very small amount. As AI and automation improve, the majority of people will have negligible economic utility. The only way around this is to let those people starve…

I believe labor is worth whatever the employer can get away with. As such the value of the cheapest labor is what society allows companies to get away with. An employee's wages should be high enough to live off of and this should be enforced by having high labor standards.

The combination of a growing no/low/medium-skill large workforce in the US makes for unlivable wages for most people because there are too many people chasing too few jobs. America doesn't do traditional factories per the Rust Belt and offshoring, but when it does, they are highly automated and don't employ as many people as they used to.

America either needs to find a way to put labor supply to work or it is going to have to give money to people so they can survive until we can find something useful or meaningful for them to do.

Perhaps America should heavily invest in a wider range of community, education, and healthcare social enterprises to provide services that aren't easily automated and are lacking.

America needs stronger, effective unions too.