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

#281

Post by vkou » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:31 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #215

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.

Henry Ford lived in a universe where the odds of the working class getting together and guillotining the owners were non-zero. Most of the West's labour gains were done under the shadow of the Red Scare.

Nobody is seriously scared of that in 2024.

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

#282

Post by ghiculescu » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:31 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #279

ghiculescu wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you trust governments to have that morality?

You don't need to trust in their morality, you have a direct ability to influence representative democracies. You have no way to influence the governance of corporations.

Sure you do. You could buy shares.

It won’t give you much influence in isolation, but I challenge you to show more influence over your elected representatives.

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

#283

Post by mrguyorama » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:32 PM UTC

bmitc wrote: post #266

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 is a lot of work to be done. Literally everywhere is short staffed: hospitals and other medical groups, construction, retail, restaurants, pharmacies, etc. I don't remember things being like this 20 years ago. Wherever you go, there's huge waits due to staffing issues.

And yet those places are entirely unwilling, and sometimes literally economically unable, to increase what they are offering to fill those positions.

It's not staffing issues. Companies very clearly are willing to overwork their existing staff rather than hire new.

There's a store of our local grocery chain that is placed in an extremely high traffic, high income, extremely high wealth portion of the state. It pulls in over $1 million a day in sales. They have complained about "staffing" for years now, all this "nobody wants to work" BS, to the point that they most likely are losing sales to competitors. They offer $20 an hour starting. They could offer $40 an hour and have their pick of great employees and unlock more revenue, but they choose not to do that, because it's better to struggle with an understaffed store than it is to set a precedent of people making actual money for their labor.

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

#284

Post by locococo » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:33 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #232

pas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn’t that how the market should work? Economically depressed area has people in need of jobs, companies should come in and satisfy that demand, making the place less economically depressed and eventually raising the cost of labor. No point to put an Amazon warehouse in Seattle’s south lake Union neighborhood, for example.

it's not how it works if there is a monopoly. E.g amazon is the only employer. I think this is where the local and federal governments should step in. If someone is working for 40 hours and needs foods stamps then the companies should be required to reimburse the government. It's a disgrace for society to take advantage of people like that.

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

#285

Post by muffinman26 » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:33 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…

Isn't it mid-skilled desk jobs that are becoming worth less and less?

You can't automate a lot of tasks firefighters do. You need someone to actually show up in-person, in an area where there might be things that interfere with electronics.

Automation in cleaning or cooking is pretty minimal. I don't see computers replacing chefs at any of the restaurants in town. We have roombas, but they aren't even particularly good at vacuuming - they can't move furniture to get behind it - and I don't know of anything that automates dusting, etc. There's laundry machines and dishwashers, but they still require human intervention.

We have more and more people delivering packages, not less, and self-driving technology is a dangerous/morbid joke.

On the other hand, automation of websites is getting better, but we didn't really need most websites anyway.

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

#286

Post by vkou » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

ghiculescu wrote: post #282

vkou wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to trust in their morality, you have a direct ability to influence representative democracies. You have no way to influence the governance of corporations.

Sure you do. You could buy shares. It won’t give you much influence in isolation, but I challenge you to show more influence over your elected representatives.

> Sure you do. You could buy shares.

Oh, yeah, it's a great system if you're someone who has money. Most people don't.

Representatives, on the other hand, can't exist without votes.

Most of the money in politics is spent on convincing voters to vote for a particular rep, that's why money holds sway over politicians. But money in itself isn't actually going to get someone elected.

And isn't it weird how the people who do get elected actually tend to be of at least vaguely similar political leanings to their constituents?

If money was all it took, we'd have no issue electing hard-conservative anti-abortion fundamentalists in, say Chicago, as long as they had policies that their donors found appealing. (Or, conversely, socially progressive, economically regressive 'liberals' in the deep south.)

As it turns out, money in elections can only shift the needle so much, and won't turn black into white.

What it can do is pick a winner out of a lineup of similar candidates, where the margins are close enough that a bigger advertising war chest will move the needle... And even then, all of those campaigns are only possible by ground-canvassing volunteers, who are motivated ideologically, not financially.

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

#287

Post by Bostonian » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:34 PM UTC

michael9423 wrote: post #182

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…

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…

'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.'

"Siphoned off"? The shareholders funded the automation that boosted the workers' productivity.

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

#288

Post by coffeecloud » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:35 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…

I'm not sure what you consider low-skilled - but have you tried to hire someone to build or fix anything recently?

Labor jobs seem to demand a huge price right now - and I don't think anyone is predicting robots that can tile a backsplash, install a 240v outlet, or even dig a trench for a sewer line anywhere in the near future. Let alone have the cost of owning and operating such a robot be more cost effective than paying a human.

I'm much more concerned about lawyers, accountants, marketers, and software engineers than I am people who physically build and fix things.

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

#289

Post by Aunche » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:38 PM UTC

michael9423 wrote: post #182

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…

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…

If shareholders aren't entitled to the profit of a business, then they wouldn't have invested in it in the first place.

> there should be rules in place that give all workers of a publicly traded company better access to owning parts of said company.

At the end of the day, the price of labor is going to be a the intersection of supply and demand, so this isn't much different that forcing an employee to spend x% of their wages on buying shares in their own company. This would be great if you were a 1997 Amazon employees, but it would be a disaster for 1997 Sears employees.

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

#290

Post by toomuchtodo » Wed, May 22, 2024, 9:38 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #274

toomuchtodo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

> continue to provide social safety nets Ok. So you admit that it's not a subsidy to businesses then and you're just using that word as an inflammatory talking point? > 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. The problem is that if you're making wrong observations about these individual cells, you're going to write bad func…

No, I still assert government subsidies to people employed below a living wage are corporate subsidies. I am referring to citizens needing a social safety net who do not have an employer, children, or the elderly (social security, medicare, medicaid, wic, snap, section 8 housing, to name a few but not all encompassing).

> Do you realize that this is exactly what Amazon wants? https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/economy/15-minimum-wage

They fight unions awfully hard for an org proclaiming to want better wages and working conditions for their workers. Amazon wants both the positive PR while maintaining unilateral control over workers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/economy/amazon-u...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_worker_organization

My talking points aren't inflammatory, they are observations. If the observations are inflammatory, change the state being observed if you don't care for current state being inflammatory. "I don't like the truth" is not a rebuttal, and the truth is pretty terrible based on all available evidence.