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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

#241

Post by AnthonyMouse »

saalweachter wrote: post #228
hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You're forgetting that there is a finite amount of work needed and so orders-of-magnitude fewer people are required. Also, the average real purchasing power in America has been declining for a very long time and cannot afford goods and services except through taking on debt.

There are two basic solutions to this problem. 1. Everyone works less (the government mandates a 35, 30, 20... hour workweek), raising the relative value of labor. 2. We collectively do more than the bare minimum needed for survival and comfort (the government raises taxes, spending them on activities like building sports stadiums or moonbases), raising the demand for labor.

Or we could just have the government stop having laws that constrain competition, so that automation makes things cost less instead of siphoning the money into the coffers of megacorps, and then at lower prices people buy more products and services, increasing the demand for labor and decreasing the cost of living.

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

#242

Post by carlosjobim »

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…

> 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.

A person who is actually working within an industrialized economy produces at least ten times more than what is needed to sustain them. Your attitude is exactly what the communist rulers in the political class and the capitalist rulers in the business and banking class want the serfs to believe. They work together as brothers when it is against the common man.

I say it is completely groundless fear. Even non-talented and non-gifted persons can achieve extreme productivity with modern tools and training.

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

#243

Post by Aunche »

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.

This is neither how economics nor politics works. For one, Amazon actually advocates for a higher minimum wage.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/economy/15-minimum-wage

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

#244

Post by legitster »

We really need to stop treating this as such a "gotcha!" The whole idea of welfare is that it is supposed to go to people who need it - working or not.

Are people on Food Stamps always going to be unemployed? No? Then are they are going to be employed somewhere? Am I supposed to be mad that these programs are working as designed?

Food stamps and medicaid in particular are also explicitly tied to family need. Unless Amazon is going to start paying someone with a family of 5 more than a person with a family of 3, these criteria are always going to be malleable. (In our state, Medicaid eligibility goes up to $80k in income and up to $100k for food stamps!)

As a proud taxpayer, I am happy my money is going towards working families. I would be more concerned had it not. And I am not going to pretend to be shocked that the beneficiaries work in (surprise) low-income jobs.

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

#245

Post by model-15-DAV »

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…

The issue is that the social safety net has been set afire and left to burn. We need a new narrative of a social structure. I have been calling it the 'social base case' instead of safety net.

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

#246

Post by iancmceachern »

taeric wrote: post #116
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.

You are basically arguing that rich entities shouldn't employ low income employees, with this logic. While you can imagine this means richer people will start to do all of their low income work, that also means there are no lower income jobs. We can hope those are simply shifted up the pay scale, but it is equally as likely that the jobs just go away. Likely not full classes of jobs, mind you, but certainly there wil…

This is reducto ad absurdum

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

superturkey650 wrote: post #230
hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You're forgetting that there is a finite amount of work needed and so orders-of-magnitude fewer people are required. Also, the average real purchasing power in America has been declining for a very long time and cannot afford goods and services except through taking on debt.

Why do you say there is a finite amount of work needed? There might be, at any one time, a finite amount of work someone is willing to pay x > 0 dollars for, but as x goes to 0 I’d intuitively think the amount of work increases indefinitely.

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #206
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…

No. You're forgetting that there is a finite amount of work needed and so orders-of-magnitude fewer people are required. Also, the average real purchasing power in America has been declining for a very long time and cannot afford goods and services except through taking on debt.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

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

#249

Post by WorkerBee28474 »

ptsneves wrote: post #197
pc86 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what Mitt Romney was referring to during the 2012 election when he said he wasn't worried about the very rich, and he wasn't worried about the very poor. The truth is if you are making $20k/yr in income you're likely in a better position day-to-day than someone making $40k/yr, especially if you're raising a family and especially if you live in a city with functioning social services. He was excoriated…

Compare that calibre with this year’s roster and it makes me cry. Why didn’t he run a term later?

Let's be honest, no matter who the Republicans run, the candidate will be demonized. Only years later, when the person is not a threat to Democrat dominance will people judge them more positively on their actual value like is happening here (and has happened to McCain, and to Bush...).

If you don't get points for running a good candidate, there's no incentive to run a good candidate, only one who can win.

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

#250

Post by skhunted »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #239
skhunted wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently we live in a society in which a few people have more wealth than tens of millions. The distribution of resources in the world is grossly unfair and there needs to be an evening out of this distribution. Let's first have a more equal society and then tackle the problem of underemployment.

> Let's first have a more equal society and then tackle the problem of underemployment. In other words let's never tackle the problem of underemployment? A good way to ensure that something never gets done is to require a very hard thing to be done before it.

Your statement assumes a conclusion that has not been established and indeed that conclusion is wrong in my opinion. We can tax wealth and tax money transfers out of the country and do a host of other things to equalize things. We can establish labor standards that mandate a certain level of living for workers. We can also require a high level of labor standards for imported goods.

As an extreme example of how easy it can be to better equalize the distribution of wealth, and not one that I'm advocating for, the Soviets did a great job of ensuring that economic inequality was low. Of course this was obtained by ensuring that everyone was equally poor.

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