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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

#461

Post by zrn900 »

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…

> Being able to buy and sell shares is not problematic per se, but there should be rules in place that give all workers of a publicly traded company better access to owning parts of said company.

Thats not a bad idea. If it was required to run some sufficient percentage of the company as if it was a cooperative and give a defined amount of shares to any joining employee for X years of service and also give representation to the workers in the governance of the company, things could be better. Europe already has the latter in the form of 'work councils'.

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

#462

Post by bloppe »

always2slow wrote: post #401
galdosdi wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because money doesn't buy happiness, and a lot of the increase in purchasing power is pointless stuff like the fact that you can buy an iPad that's twice as powerful for half the cost, or get YouTube for free instead of paying $50 for cable, while the things that really matter like housing go up in price relative to wages. If you want to feel richer, look on Amazon/AliExpress and try to remember what stuff like that…

Well mostly I was fixating on the health insurance, and how health insurance's growth rate has slowed, but healthcare costs have gone way up in general and health insurance covers almost nothing anymore while deductibles have also gone up (for me). But again it's about rates, and I guess when I look at Figure 3 again it just seems deceptive.. a personal computer purchase for me includes a GPU and those prices did not…

Your link examines the purchasing power of "a dollar", not the purchasing power of the average person. Inflation is always supposed to be positive because deflation is far worse for the economy than inflation is. Average wages have also increased since 2019, hence average purchasing power of people increasing. Inequality has increased, but real purchasing power is still increasing for people at the 75th percentile, so generally almost everybody is getting more wealthy in real terms.

Housing and healthcare costs are outpacing wage increases, it's true. The CPI (which is used to determine real purchasing power) weights them at about ~44% and ~7%, respectively [1]. So together, these constitute about half of the CPI, and yet average real purchasing power is still increasing.

The big factor is where you live. If you live near a wealthy coastal city, you're getting railed by NIMBYs into far higher housing costs than the average American. You're also more likely to be in the minority of Americans who don't already live in a home they own (65% of Americans own their own home), so housing price increases are even worse for you. This group is likely over-represented on HN, but it's not exactly "average".

Cold comfort I'm sure... but migration is a potential solution.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2023.htm

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

#463

Post by WorkerBee28474 »

John23832 wrote: post #435
WorkerBee28474 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The current republican candidate is highly different. He fomented a mob on the steps of the capital because he was upset he didn’t win. The others you mention just had political qualities people disliked.

That's part of the point. People spewed vitriol at both Bush and Trump with similar levels of hate. It didn't matter that they were of different quality.

If you're already 100% sure the other side is going to passionately hate your candidate, no matter who you pick, then you can't win by choosing a reasonable or moderate candidate. Therefore, you pick whoever has the strongest appeal amongst your side.

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

#464

Post by astrange »

devmor wrote: post #421
astrange wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As prior evidence shows, there is always someone willing to work for less, if they have to. Such people are not particularly easy to find right now. The employment situation in the US is the best for workers it has been in decades. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12032194 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

These datapoints strengthen my argument. More Americans are in the workforce than ever before, because every household requires more laborers to do work for less compensation. Federal employment data also does not paint a cohesive picture of the situation. For one, it does not include undocumented labor - the labor that makes up the vast majority of incredibly low paid positions. Secondly, it is inflated by the fact…

> More Americans are in the workforce than ever before, because every household requires more laborers to do work for less compensation.

That isn't what they show. Actually what they show is that households have gotten smaller over time, because people have gotten richer/older and no longer live with their parents.

> Federal employment data also does not paint a cohesive picture of the situation.

These numbers come from a monthly household survey and don't have this issue. They know what they're doing.

> For one, it does not include undocumented labor - the labor that makes up the vast majority of incredibly low paid positions.

Such people have, since 2019, actually gotten the most pay increases of any part of the working population.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010

> Secondly, it is inflated by the fact that so many people are forced to work part-time positions - usually multiple at once.

Only 5% of Americans report working multiple jobs, and that's not particularly historically high.

Your idea of how the economy works is just a decade out of date. In the ways you think it's bad it is specifically the best it's been in decades, or in fact ever.

This is a common issue though: https://x.com/dkthomp/status/1793270876550398329

The cause of this issue is that the US media believes their job is to avoid reporting good news, unless they can do it ironically.

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

#465

Post by jonathankoren »

ars wrote: post #44
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.

Amazon is hardly one of the "most profitable companies in the world". Also Amazon can't really raise prices without losing sales - I've already shifted many of my purchases because Amazon is too expensive. They don't really have room to raise wages without hurting the people who are buying the products. People forget that a lot - if you raise wages you also have to raise prices, which ends up hurting the exact people…

> People forget that a lot - if you raise wages you also have to raise prices, which ends up hurting the exact people you are raising wages for.

This is simply false. It’s false just thinking about it, and it’s false from multiple economic studies in the real world. It’s a common falsehood spread by corporations, but it’s false.

First, you can’t have it both ways and say companies “can’t raise prices without losing sales” and then turn around and say, “if you raise wages, you have to raise prices” and “people are paid according to their economic value”. If all of these statements are true, then no one could ever be paid more than their starting wage, because if their pay increased, then sales would go down due to price increases. Even if a person’s perceived economic value increased, they could never be paid commiserate with their value, because that would lead to a decrease in sales. This is obviously false.

Minimum wage increases simply don’t lead to price increases or unemployment or any of the sky is falling predictions typically touted. We’ve known this for over 30 years now. Of course, lest we forget, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 has been fixed since 2009, months much represents a real wage cut in 2024.

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

#466

Post by organsnyder »

jimbokun wrote: post #210
organsnyder wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surviving in these systems is incredibly stressful and leads to trauma for both the workers and their families. The stigma, uncertainty, and bureaucracy exact tremendous tolls.

Try surviving in the world before those systems existed.

Oh, it was most certainly worse. But that doesn't mean we can't do better.

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

#467

Post by GreenWatermelon »

parineum wrote: post #313
schmidtleonard wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Which system works better?

Whatever system they use in Scandinavian countries.

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

#468

Post by rickydroll »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #457
rickydroll wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Study: Politicians listen to rich people, not you Rich people don't want a higher minimum wage, UBI, and greater corporate taxation. https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-...

That does support both that governments can't be trusted to behave morally and that voting shares is just as good, but your tone suggests that you're disagreeing with the parent. Am I misreading that intent?

Thank you for prompting me to reread the comment tree to untangle the meandering rambles. Hopefully, this will clarify my perspective.

I think there's a chance you misread. Many times, I feel the conversations we have online would be better off held over a few beers and a backyard barbecue.

I feel that any concentrated center of power cannot be trusted to behave ethically. That's a fancy way of saying you can't trust the government or corporation to behave morally/ethically.

I assert that you have more control over government than you do corporations because, as someone said above, you can lobby/campaign/vote and have an impact on local, state, and federal government. As an aside, the further away from local, the less impact you have.

With corporations, you could buy shares, but given that each share is equal to one vote, the more money you have, the more influence you can exert.

I know it's been a fashion since Reagan to distrust government, but decades of neoliberalism have shown that counting on corporations usually makes things worse. Anytime one transfers a communal benefit into the pockets of a few, bad things happen.

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

#469

Post by dangus »

BeetleB wrote: post #86
dangus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one who can hold down a job and is currently employed should need government assistance to survive. Doesn’t matter if it’s Amazon or its competitors.

> No one who can hold down a job and is currently employed should need government assistance to survive. The outcome of absolutes like these is that we would remove government assistance to those who are employed (excluding those who are handicapped, etc). You could fix it by raising the minimum wage higher - up to a point where government assistance is unnecessary. And it's on the government and the voters that they…

Obviously I don’t mean my comment as a hardline absolute.

But I do mean that able-bodied people with what we would consider a substantial means of employment shouldn’t need government assistance. I’m obviously not talking about edge cases.

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

#470

Post by galdosdi »

Nevermark wrote: post #431
galdosdi wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're both wrong -- if you need two different resources as inputs to make something, and either missing makes the process impossible, it doesn't matter what your subjective opinions are when deciding which is more valuable. They are equally necessary and that's all there is to it. So how come some input resources are priced a lot more highly than others? How come sometimes, say, labor gets a big cut and capital a sm…

> They are equally necessary and that's all there is to it. Equally necessary doesn’t mean equally valuable. So there is that. The more tasks that are automated, the more easily a low level worker is replaced. And the less they will get paid. Think warehouses, checkout attendants, gig workers, … The masses of jobs don’t require unique humans. And the more is automated, the less individual worker skills matter. For mo…

> Equally necessary doesn’t mean equally valuable. So there is that.

But there's no objective way to measure valuable other than what the output is and what happens if the resource is removed. That's circular reasoning. You want to believe that doing something easy can't possibly be as valuable, but, it sure can, it's all a matter of supply and demand. We've all seen boomtown situations, especially if we read history or follow current events, where suddenly an undersupply of warm bodies relative to the opportunities makes for high wages relatively speaking for anyone just willing to move to the boomtown area.

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