5 ms·

What percentage of non-amazon warehouse workers are on food stamps? We all love to hate Amazon, but such statistics are meaningless without context.

dangus 2y ago
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.
- astrange 2y ago
  You need to apply marginal thinking here. They are better off with welfare benefits, which means it's a good thing that they have them. If you gave them more benefits, they would have more negotiating power and be able to become even more employed[0], and then would you complain more? [0] assuming that's what they want to do
  - RobotToaster 2y ago
    Giving benefits to employees, instead of forcing the company to pay a living wage, is effectively a subsidy for corporate profits.
    - astrange 2y ago
      No, giving money to employers is a subsidy for employers. Giving money to employees is a subsidy /against/ employers.
    - nickff 2y ago
      You seem to be assuming that if the government doesn’t give these people the money, the employer will. Why is that? Is it not also possible that the government benefits make low-wage work less appealing, thus lowering the supply, and increasing the compensation?
    - nradov 2y ago
      The lowest skilled workers at the bottom of the productivity scale don't generate enough value to justify paying them a living wage. If the company is forced to pay a living wage to such workers then management will send the work offshore, or automate it, or just not do it at all. The worker will then have zero wage. Instead of artificially raising the minimum wage we should put more funding into job training. Help those marginal workers build the skills they need to earn higher wages.
- andybak 2y ago
  It's not the government assistance that's the problem (that shouldn't carry a stigma per se) - it's the fact that Amazon doesn't pay for it's own externalities (if you can call workforce exploitation an "externality") Imagine a scenario where "assistance" wasn't stigmatized and Amazon had to pay higher taxes fully proportionate with the cost of paying it's employees properly? I mean - at that point they might as well pay people properly!
  - astrange 2y ago
    Amazon is in Washington state, which doesn't have an income tax. In my opinion, if they need Amazon to pay more they should try having one of those.
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    Smartass question: how is it Amazon's externality when they would have been on food stamps without Amazon's job? It is clear that ideally they wouldn't be on food stamps with the job, sure but crediting preexisting problems towards whomever doesn't solve them fully sounds like a recipe for just making things worse.
- dantheman 2y ago
  So you'd prefer they'd be fired if they can generate more value than they cost?
- BeetleB 2y ago
  > 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 don't do that, not on Amazon. Absolutes come with hard boundaries, and collectively, we've decided that those hard boundaries are suboptimal. Hence the status quo. Companies exist by paying market wages. The whole point of the minimum wage is to eliminate jobs whose market pay would be below the minimum wage. Lots of anti-Amazon ranting in the comments, but no one's outlining a clear solution beyond raising the minimum wage. (Yes, it's hopelessly naive to expect a large, powerful company to pay above market wages just out of principle - when their competitors don't need to). Anti-disclaimers: I dislike Amazon. I avoid shopping there. I avoid working there. Yet, my biases aren't going to let me discount the fact that I personally know two people who've worked for Amazon - one also at other warehouses - and they liked the job more than the other places they've worked at.
  - dangus 2y ago
    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.
- missedthecue 2y ago
  If you work full time you really can't qualify for government assistance unless you have children.
pylua 2y ago
Is this a good comparison? Most businesses scrape by while Amazon is a behemoth.
jonathankoren 2y ago
Are you really saying, “But Walmart doesn’t pay a living wage either so it’s okay?” https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...
iancmceachern 2y ago
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.
- WillAdams 2y ago
  The concept you are looking for is "payslope", and it should be a standard part of such conversations: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-levels-the-pay-slope-of-executives-and-workers/article15472738/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/h...
- astrange 2y ago
  Amazon is famously not very profitable, mostly because they reinvest everything in growth.
  - iancmceachern 2y ago
    They recently changed that, they famously reported a 30+ billion dollar profit last year.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- massysett 2y ago
  If Amazon took the CEO’s salary and reduced it to zero and distributed the savings to every line employee, how much money would each line employee get?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 2y ago
WillAdams 2y ago
~12.6% per: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/food-stamp-benefits-by-state https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/food-stamp-... >More than 42 million Americans receive a federal stipend for food through the program formerly known as food stamps.
- macNchz 2y ago
  Two thirds of those recipients are not actually expected to work at all, being too old/young or otherwise excused: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-provides-critical-benefits-to-workers-and-their-families#:~:text=The%20share%20of%20SNAP%20participants,older%20adults%2C%20or%20disabled%20people https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-provides-....
- SheepSlapper 2y ago
  I believe the question was "what is the rate of food stamp program eligibility for warehouse workers, regardless of their employer". Which is an interesting question, are there statistics for this which are broken down by profession? Your link shows that 1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps, which is interesting (and a surprise to me) but it's missing the point of the question above. What's the rate of workers on FS in any given warehouse across the country?
- BeetleB 2y ago
  The question was about warehouse workers, not all workers.
ClarityJones 2y ago
I'm seeing about 19% on Medicaid and about 12.5% are on Food Stamps. In theory that could be up to 1/3, but there's presumably a lot of overlap... so maybe 25% give or take?

dangus 2y ago

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.

astrange 2y ago
You need to apply marginal thinking here. They are better off with welfare benefits, which means it's a good thing that they have them. If you gave them more benefits, they would have more negotiating power and be able to become even more employed[0], and then would you complain more? [0] assuming that's what they want to do
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  Giving benefits to employees, instead of forcing the company to pay a living wage, is effectively a subsidy for corporate profits.
  - astrange 2y ago
    No, giving money to employers is a subsidy for employers. Giving money to employees is a subsidy /against/ employers.
  - nickff 2y ago
    You seem to be assuming that if the government doesn’t give these people the money, the employer will. Why is that? Is it not also possible that the government benefits make low-wage work less appealing, thus lowering the supply, and increasing the compensation?
  - nradov 2y ago
    The lowest skilled workers at the bottom of the productivity scale don't generate enough value to justify paying them a living wage. If the company is forced to pay a living wage to such workers then management will send the work offshore, or automate it, or just not do it at all. The worker will then have zero wage. Instead of artificially raising the minimum wage we should put more funding into job training. Help those marginal workers build the skills they need to earn higher wages.
andybak 2y ago
It's not the government assistance that's the problem (that shouldn't carry a stigma per se) - it's the fact that Amazon doesn't pay for it's own externalities (if you can call workforce exploitation an "externality") Imagine a scenario where "assistance" wasn't stigmatized and Amazon had to pay higher taxes fully proportionate with the cost of paying it's employees properly? I mean - at that point they might as well pay people properly!
- astrange 2y ago
  Amazon is in Washington state, which doesn't have an income tax. In my opinion, if they need Amazon to pay more they should try having one of those.
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  Smartass question: how is it Amazon's externality when they would have been on food stamps without Amazon's job? It is clear that ideally they wouldn't be on food stamps with the job, sure but crediting preexisting problems towards whomever doesn't solve them fully sounds like a recipe for just making things worse.
dantheman 2y ago
So you'd prefer they'd be fired if they can generate more value than they cost?
BeetleB 2y ago
> 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 don't do that, not on Amazon. Absolutes come with hard boundaries, and collectively, we've decided that those hard boundaries are suboptimal. Hence the status quo. Companies exist by paying market wages. The whole point of the minimum wage is to eliminate jobs whose market pay would be below the minimum wage. Lots of anti-Amazon ranting in the comments, but no one's outlining a clear solution beyond raising the minimum wage. (Yes, it's hopelessly naive to expect a large, powerful company to pay above market wages just out of principle - when their competitors don't need to). Anti-disclaimers: I dislike Amazon. I avoid shopping there. I avoid working there. Yet, my biases aren't going to let me discount the fact that I personally know two people who've worked for Amazon - one also at other warehouses - and they liked the job more than the other places they've worked at.
- dangus 2y ago
  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.
missedthecue 2y ago
If you work full time you really can't qualify for government assistance unless you have children.

pylua 2y ago

Is this a good comparison? Most businesses scrape by while Amazon is a behemoth.

jonathankoren 2y ago

Are you really saying, “But Walmart doesn’t pay a living wage either so it’s okay?” https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...

iancmceachern 2y ago

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.

WillAdams 2y ago
The concept you are looking for is "payslope", and it should be a standard part of such conversations: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/how-one-company-levels-the-pay-slope-of-executives-and-workers/article15472738/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/h...
astrange 2y ago
Amazon is famously not very profitable, mostly because they reinvest everything in growth.
- iancmceachern 2y ago
  They recently changed that, they famously reported a 30+ billion dollar profit last year.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
massysett 2y ago
If Amazon took the CEO’s salary and reduced it to zero and distributed the savings to every line employee, how much money would each line employee get?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- 2y ago

WillAdams 2y ago

~12.6% per: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/food-stamp-benefits-by-state https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/food-stamp-... >More than 42 million Americans receive a federal stipend for food through the program formerly known as food stamps.

macNchz 2y ago
Two thirds of those recipients are not actually expected to work at all, being too old/young or otherwise excused: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-provides-critical-benefits-to-workers-and-their-families#:~:text=The%20share%20of%20SNAP%20participants,older%20adults%2C%20or%20disabled%20people https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-provides-....
SheepSlapper 2y ago
I believe the question was "what is the rate of food stamp program eligibility for warehouse workers, regardless of their employer". Which is an interesting question, are there statistics for this which are broken down by profession? Your link shows that 1 in 8 Americans are on food stamps, which is interesting (and a surprise to me) but it's missing the point of the question above. What's the rate of workers on FS in any given warehouse across the country?
BeetleB 2y ago
The question was about warehouse workers, not all workers.

ClarityJones 2y ago

I'm seeing about 19% on Medicaid and about 12.5% are on Food Stamps. In theory that could be up to 1/3, but there's presumably a lot of overlap... so maybe 25% give or take?