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Amazon’s Minimum Wage Will Change How Americans Think About Work
- prolikewh0a 8y ago$15/hr is not a lot of money, regardless of how positive and mind blown these media websites are. Nobody's "moving cities" for $15/hr. It's still barely above poverty in anywhere that's not rural. $15/hr in Seattle is poverty or living 2-3 hours away from work.
- jonknee 8y agoWell I guess you should let these excited employees know that they should be upset: https://twitter.com/davehclark/status/1047071466787889154 https://twitter.com/davehclark/status/1047071466787889154
- SEJeff 8y agoOne of the biggest Amazon warehouses in the US is in Lexington, KY. The average income of a Lexington-Fayette resident is $29,168 a year. For them, $15 / hour puts them above the average, so that is still an improvement.
- Orphis 8y agoAbove the previous average. With the increase they all have, it may raise the average income in the area too, and they could still be below it.
- ProfessorLayton 8y agoI'm not going to argue that 15/hr is a lot of money, but as someone who didn't grow up with much, it isn't terrible either. That translates to ~30k/year, which doesn't sound like much, but for a dual-income family a $15/hr min wage (Something Amazon is lobbying for) becomes 60k/year — Pretty much the median household income in the US [1] Just putting some perspective. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
- cm2012 8y ago30k a year is around the median individuals wage also.
- throwaway2048 8y agokeep in mind 15/h is radically different from when you grew up, especially in a city that anyone wants to live in. Over half your wage is going towards rent, even with the shittiest conditions.
- tcbawo 8y agoMany people are choosing where to live based on income/expense differential instead of just income. Talent is choosing not to relocate to high cost of living areas, so many companies are opening up offices in these middle-tier cities.
- brianwawok 8y agoNot many amazon warehouses are in high COL cities. I know the big ones for Chicago were the far burbs and Wisconsin.
- commandlinefan 8y agoUnless rent, transportation and groceries all go up by the same amount so nobody can live on $30k/year any more...
- Karunamon 8y ago$15/hr in Seattle (and Tacoma/Bellevue) is $1.61/hr above a living wage for the average single person with no kids. [1] I thought the goal of the living wage was to ensure that, in general, people can cover their necessities without having to resort to welfare. Once the first couple levels of maslow's hierarchy are taken care of, doesn't the usual advice of "start climbing" apply to the rest of it? [1]: http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/42660 http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/42660
- prolikewh0a 8y agoThat's such a bulls##t study. $15/hr is rent and nothing else anywhere within 15 miles. $15/hr qualifies for HUD rent control in Seattle.
- pm90 8y agoMost amazon warehouses are not located in Seattle. This compensation might be very attractive to more rural/small town folks and could considerably improve their quality of life.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago>It's still barely above poverty in anywhere that's not rural. I included that.
- andyburke 8y agoNot to mention that, based on some of the Reddit threads I've seen on this from actual Amazon warehouse employees, they're often not even getting full-time hours. Lots of people seem to be getting 4 6-hour or 3 8-hour shifts a week.
- prolikewh0a 8y agoI would bet they'll be given even less hours now, but at $15/hr.
- hashberry 8y agoAn interesting tidbit on minimum wage: > According to the Pew Research Center, when adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage in America peaked at $8.54 in 1968. If the federal minimum wage had kept up with increases in worker productivity since then, in 2012 it would have been $21.72 an hour. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/09/07/there-is-absolutely-no-reason-why-the-minimum-wage-should-track-average-labor-productivity/#37da2fc14afa https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/09/07/there-is...
- JohnCohorn 8y agoI know nothing of economics, but I’m curious how relevant comparing against our own historical productivity actually is. For example, shouldn’t the comparison also be against productivity and productivity/wage growth in other countries we’re competing with? Is productivity even something that can be measured in such a way that useful comparisons can actually be made across time periods?
- derefr 8y ago> Is productivity even something that can be measured in such a way that useful comparisons can actually be made across time periods? [Inflation-adjusted] GDP is held to represent the productivity of an entire country in a way where one can make historical contrasts. Therefore, [inflation-adjusted] GDP per capita (a.k.a. PPP, Purchasing Power Parity) could be a valid measure of average individual worker productivity.
- j4kp07 8y agoIt's not interesting. It' cherry picking.
- commandlinefan 8y agoWait, are they trying to say that minimum wage was $8.54 in 1968? I remember it being $4.25 when I was a kid in the 80’s.
- kadoban 8y ago
- da02 8y agoWhat's it like to work for Amazon?
- brianwawok 8y agoIT or warehouse? Two very different experiences. Warehouse has always paid well for the educational requirements. Many people don’t love walking a few miles a shift, nor not having time to use the restrooms. Others obviously thrive in it, they have a lot of workers and can’t all be turned over every month.
- da02 8y agoThanks for the info. Have you worked at an Amazon warehouse?
- brianwawok 8y agoNo just read a lot. There’s a lot of first hand reports.
- HelloFellowDevs 8y agoI don't think the shift to $15/hr will make as much of an impact as this article theorizes. It's not barely enough to live off but the buying power still isn't substantial. So giving workers more 'freedom' because of the hike to $15 won't make much of a debt imo.
- ericd 8y agoIf you go from $12/hr to $15/hr, that might not seem like a large difference, but it might mean going from a net income of -$50/week to +$50/week, which is a massive difference - one means a debt spiral, the other means building savings. Or $20 to $120, 6x the disposable income.
- jngreenlee 8y ago$15/hour in some cases is enough to move above the maximum for Medicaid (133% of FPL for various family/household sizes). Many low-income workers DO NOT want to lose Medicaid as it is a big benefit, works well, esp. for large families (consider a grandma that has adopted three of her grandchildren and needs to care for them, I talked to one last week). I own a small business with a few part time employees, and I run into people asking for less pay but more in other benefits (PTO, holidays, etc.) Will be interesting to see the impact of this.
- itsdrewmiller 8y agoDo any of them ask for less pay with no compensating benefits? If not it seems like this is still a good result, if not perfectly optimized to take advantage of benefits for those with low income.
- Consultant32452 8y agoJust to add another anecdata.. A close friend of mine owned several Subway franchises. This was always a double edged sword for trying to figure out how to reward the best employees. Virtually every single time a person was given a significant raise, they asked for fewer hours. They were comfortable living on $X/wk and now they could make that working fewer hours. This is perhaps good for the worker but obviously bad for the store. The best employees are working less and less, decreasing the quality of work done in the store. This may or may not have had anything to do with qualifying for benefits of some sort. But it is a very difficult problem a lot of small business owners face.
- b_tterc_p 8y agoThat’s an interesting problem because social support systems are thus actually pushing people into continued poverty rather than helping them get out.
- Consultant32452 8y ago
- yitosda 8y agoCalling it "minimum wage" seems like a marketing gimmick. I believe Amazon finds themselves needing to raise wages because the other large employers are as well. In other words, the unemployment level has finally dropped far enough that employees start to feel the benefits of competition. This is good news for lots of people, but not really a paradigm shift.. ?
- tvmalsv 8y agoAnd, from what I've read, Amazon is supporting legislation of a higher minimum wage. Which, seems to me, would be more of a burden on their competitors than themselves, thus giving Amazon a competitive advantage.
- AjithAntony 8y agoJust like when they lost the sales tax battle. They flipped their position to lobby for sales tax for everyone.
- hashberry 8y agoI had many summer warehouse jobs doing picking and shipping/receiving. I busted my ass off with lots of manual labor and strict timetracking. But my co-workers were not exactly the brightest of the bunch: alcoholics, ex-cons, high school drop outs, poor English, etc. There's an entire bottom rung of society that most people ignore. Higher wages are for attracting and retaining better workers. If $15/hour ever becomes minimum federal wage, I bet Amazon would up their own minimum wage as well.
- nerdponx 8y agoWhy do minimum wage discussions almost never take cost-of-living into account? Minimum livable wages vary widely.