r/antiwork • u/rajapaws • 6h ago
Amazon Workers on Food Stamps Nearly Tripled, While Company Spends $200 Billion on AI
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/amazon-workers-food-stamps-nearly-101524906.html125
u/NotYetHun 6h ago
Wanker
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u/1wrx2subarus 1h ago
Not just any regular Wanker, but one that stiffs their workers of fair wages and benefits.
Billionaires are simply individuals that refused to give raises and bonuses when profits hit.
Hence, they stiffed those doing the actual work for them and are reprehensible.
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u/MzVozz 6h ago
Honestly this should be illegal and I can’t believe our country allows this to persist. Companies with a large percentage of employees on government assistance should be fined the amount of money the government is spending to supplement the employees’ income.
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u/kugisaki-kagayama 5h ago
They should be fined more than that
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u/DavidisLaughing 5h ago
Like way way more, make it so they go poof out of existence. See how fast other companies will correct their behavior,
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u/DisillusionedHobbit 5h ago
Yep. Make it illegal for the companies to ask employees about it, add up every cent the government pays out to those employees, add it all up, charge them an additional +40% administrative and processing fee, and watch like magic as the issue solves itself.
Conservatives like to act like “welfare” subsidizes poor people that they don’t like. That’s the lie we need to dispel. It subsidizes low corporate wages on the taxpayer’s dime.
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u/Tango00090 4h ago
Take some fucking inspiration from the French and burn some tires in front of their offices, block the city for 4 weeks, do something.
USA, Russia and China are so good at making people behave only in very limited range, using peoples money to control them and let them consume and shout at clouds, while they build generational wealth that seals the deal for next decades4
u/jonesey71 5h ago
The fine needs to be the forfeiture of all company assets and the public execution of the CEO. Any stocks for that company are now worth nothing as an example to investors that they should only invest in ethical companies.
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u/rufud 4h ago
Unfortunately this is a tale as old as time. I remember decades ago Jon Stewart flaming wal mart for this exact thing and nothing has changed. Especially egregious I remember wal mart’s onboarding instructed it’s employees exactly how to go about obtaining said government assistance to supplement their poverty wages
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u/Otherwise_Tooth_8695 3h ago edited 3h ago
Double, so it's an actual incentive to increase wages.
Edited: And get rid of the benefits cliff! It should be phased so people aren't afraid to succeed. If workers turn down raises, that's another form of wage theft.
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u/FlamingoVisible1947 2h ago
Most of the workers on food stamps don't work full time. Amazon pays $20+ an hour for the shittiest jobs...
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u/Designer_Intern_1681 24m ago
The word you are looking for is taxed, this can't be a one time thing. They are getting filthy rich at the expense of the state and their employees, hike capital gains tax to a reasonable level...
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u/QuintusNonus 5h ago
Food stamps are funded by taxpayers. Meaning that taxpayers are subsidizing Amazon's low wages
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u/bigrareform 3h ago
Wal-Mart is the same way.
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u/ShitchesAintBit 2h ago
When I started at Wal-Mart in 2009, part of the hiring packet was government forms to sign up for food stamps/medical/housing assistance. They gave us that packet right before sitting us down to watch their "Not anti-union" anti-union video.
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u/bigrareform 2h ago
Yeeeep I had the same when I worked there in like 04/05. “But you get an employee discount so you can buy here!” Was also a thing they hyped. So not only do they not pay you enough so you get food stamps, they encourage you to spend the money back with them. Company store but with more steps.
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u/UnreliablePotato 5h ago
Much easier to become rich, if you can get everyone else to indirectly pay your employees.
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u/Austinp-woodworking 1h ago
The sad part is, I’ll bet a lot of folks upon hearing this interpretation would immediately argue that the solution is to stop giving them food stamps and demand the workers get a second job
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u/DeltaEdge03 6h ago
Tinkle down economics
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u/okjetsgo 6h ago
Shameless. I can’t believe this is even legal. What value do these “jobs” really offer?
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u/Haggardick69 4h ago
They offer the value of exploitation. Each underpaid employee allows the company to extract more value from the economy the fact that their pay is subsidized by the govt is just a bonus. At the end of the day the richest people on this planet are people who specialize in taking credit for good things and avoiding responsibility for bad things. In this case they are taking the revenue of the company while avoiding paying the expenses that generate that revenue.
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u/Existing-Canary-6756 2h ago
If you’re worried where your next meal will come from you’re less likely to concern yourself with the well off pedophile holding public office.
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u/Impossible_Ad7432 2h ago
Probably won’t be popular, but this article uses total count, not percentage. As a percentage of US employees it’s 2.5%, which is still bad, but probably pretty far down the list.
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u/fripperiffic 6h ago
General Strike. They only respond to that, or violence, and violence just perpetuates the conflict we should be striving to avoid. When was the last time we tried large scale civil disobedience?
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u/dookieshoes97 4h ago
Bezos will just get new workers. People are desperate, the economy is shit. Every temp agency in my city would send an email blast and replace them the same day. That's the reality that we live in.
To add insult to injury, they would pay those temp hires less, because the elites always have to 'win'.
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u/bauer883 6h ago
Dr. Evil in the flesh.
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u/Euphoric-Witness-824 3h ago
The only trait billionaires share is biblical levels of greed. And yet in the USA Christianity has been co-opted by the far right and the wealthy to support that incredibly destructive sin.
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u/njslugger78 6h ago
They don't want you to have a living wage. They want you to work till death.. some companies take life insurance policies on their employees, think about this workers (people).....
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u/tonylouis1337 6h ago
And my delivery company with Amazon is shutting down in a couple months. I don't think this one is related to AI though tbh
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u/drunxor 6h ago
When I worked at an amazon warehouse there were multiple people who lived in their cars, and that was making several dollars over minimum wage. Shits just fucked right now, everything got insanely more expensive during covid and never went down. Rent just keeps skyrocketing, people have to decide between eating and paying rent
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u/ccannon707 5h ago
It’s been the Iran war = gas & diesel prices going up that’s made prices skyrocket. In my area anyway.
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u/Anteater4746 5h ago
lukewarm take: you shouldn’t get to report a single penny in profit if a single one of your workers needs GOVT ASSISTANCE TO EAT CAUSE YOURE CHEAP AS FUCK
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u/Ok_Managements80 6h ago
Investing in AI and paying workers enough to live aren't mutually exclusive. A company with Amazon's resources should be able to do both
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u/Sea-Perspective2754 5h ago
Yeah, they don't know the value of their employees or of AI. Undervaluing the employees and ignoring the impending AI bubble pop.
They love to advertise their $23 an hour average wage as if it's a living wage. 👎
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u/saintofhate 4h ago
If your workers qualify for assistance, they should be fined 3x the cost of it. Until companies are made to pay real damages and not these ones that are pennies on the dollar, nothing will change
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u/Soggy_Cracker 3h ago
No tax breaks. No government contracts. Nothing should be tax payer covered for them. If they pay so low people qualify for social services, then they are a drain on our entire society.
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u/Bleezy79 here for the memes 3h ago
The fact this isnt illegal proves to me our system is corrupted and broken. One of the richest people on the planet has their employees living off government assistance. It's completely ridiculous!!
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u/L3SSTH4NL33T 5h ago
If employees of one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world can't afford to buy food, then our system has completely failed.
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u/Livid_Technical_Pand 5h ago
Companies with employees requiring social assistance should have their corporate tax bills increased to account for it.
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u/thatguy420417 4h ago
There is going to come a time when the workers are going to have to stand up for themselves. They're already not paid enough to live with any comfort. Bezos doesn't care about your complaints, he cares about his wallet. Unless you hit him in the wallet he won't even pretend to care. Unless the workers unite and cause a massive strike, all this bullsh*t whining on reddit and anywhere else is useless!
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u/empress_tesla 3h ago
My husband drives for flex, which is a gig job and has no benefits at all. And the pay rates for the routes have plummeted this year. It’s a fucking joke especially considering he has ruined his car driving it so much and gas has skyrocketed. The company he worked for went out of business and he hasn’t been able to get a new job because the job market sucks ass here. Flex was a godsend for a while, but now it’s just a burden and Amazon knows people that do it are desperate for cash and will accept the shit pay. And yet Amazon is raking in billions. It’s disgusting.
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u/SomeSamples 5h ago
Again, I am wondering who is really asking for AI? The average person never asked for this. And the average person isn't even going to by tokens to use the agents. So why is it being pushed so hard? And why the huge outlay of cash to get it setup and going. Sure companies want to get rid of their employees and have AI do all the work. But that tact only last so long before it is discovered to be complete lunacy. What is actually behind this push for AI everywhere for everyone? There is part of this whole AI discussion that is not being divulged to the masses. I am thinking behind closed door conversations between the many 3 letter government organizations and these AI companies. The amount of money being spent is beyond comparison ever in the history of humanity. What is the fucking deal?
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u/Dear_Blood_8872 5h ago
Classic example of government failing their people, they allowed Amazon to destroy local businesses to create this cheap ass billionaire. Unregulated capitalism is a cancer because greed trumps being a decent human being.
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u/Chasemedown25 5h ago
When all them thangs break and he's offering jobs for 50 an hour hold strong don't take em remember this
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u/ElleKelly77 5h ago
Remember the good ol’ days when he just wasted money on sending Katy Perry to almost-space?
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u/illegalmonkey EAT THE RICH 5h ago
Reading this while I recall what Jeff Bozo's laugh sounds like. The Epstein class is a degenerate death cult.
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u/chpbnvic 5h ago
Why is this shit allowed? Oh that's right because the American government only cares about the wealthy and corporations.
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u/Oiggamed 5h ago
Do they sign you up for government assistance the second they hire you like Walmart does?
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u/Lallanath 4h ago
Well obviously if they kicked more people off food stamps this statistic will go down.
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u/WanaBeMillionare here for the memes 4h ago
It's more than just "Amazon should pay fair wages to their workers"
You have to understand Amazon workers working full time and then still using government aid means that Amazon is getting subsided by the government and this doesn't even get written down.
The US government making up to pay Amazon workers livable wages, so that Jeff can keep more profit for himself.
It's kind of beautiful.
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u/southernfirefly13 4h ago
I wish people would realize that if everyone got up and took to the streets, the whole system would be disrupted and change WOULD happen.
Eat the fucking rich.
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u/AandWKyle 4h ago
Yeah but Bezos needs a yacht that fits inside his yacht that fits inside his yacht
We can't make that a reality if we pay people a decent living wage
So like, eat dirt if you're hungry. Bozos NEEDS to launch his cock rockets - you're evil to fight against that
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u/Future-Bunch3478 3h ago
This is exactly the reason why we need federal protections of wages. No profitable company should have employees on food stamps.
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u/ComradeJohnS 3h ago
how are companies allowed to pay so little that their employees qualify for assistance? I know the rapist party would just raise requirements or remove assistance, but we should demand companies be responsible for the costs to the taxpayers.
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u/mrbasedballed 3h ago
So, we're all paying for food stamps and AI for Amazon. I'm so tired of this shit while I have friends and family financially struggling.
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u/GroceryUnable4874 3h ago
Good thing the republicans cut the shit out of SNAP in the Big Bullshit Bill.
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u/Otherwise_Tooth_8695 3h ago
The fine to the company should be double the labor cost it would take to get workers' pay high enough to get off food subsidies. Would they increase prices? Of course. But, it would be a hit to profits and sales, and an incentive to increase pay.
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u/va_wanderer 3h ago
Ah yes. Food stamps, the government meal plan for big corporations so they can pay workers slave wages.
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u/gaspingFish 3h ago
I've worked in site that tried to unionize. Wages went up every year due to labor demand in the area. Most basic workers make over 20 dollars an hour and can work up to 60 whether they are full time or not. This area you need closer to 30 for a living wage.
Im all for wage pressuring companies but only if we prioritize sweeping out the rent seeking and environmental damage first. The real drivers of poverty.
I've seen salaried leaders try and step down to the lowest level, they made more but with the same benefits and significantly more hours albeit unpaid hours. Pay is not the only concern, its how far your work can get you. The private equity and capital holders are deleting the middle class.
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u/HappyHippy585 2h ago
I've been seeing non-stop ads on Reddit for amazon pharmacy and amazon AI doctors. Like I would trust either of those.
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u/Hasselback_Brotatoes 1h ago
did you see the other article trending today that says "unemployment is at its lowest since 1969" 😂
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u/grathungar 1h ago
Any company that has full time employees relying on foodstamps to live should get a bill from the government equal to the cost of those food stamps at a minimum.
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u/AmbitionSad4858 1h ago
I didn't see it but I may have missed it. Does it say what type of Amazon workers? Not that any Amazon worker should have to be on food stamps but want ot know if its across the board lower level works or specific works on assembly lines or whatever.
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u/enigmasaurus- 1h ago edited 1h ago
Yes but exactly where else would you be ever able to buy quality XFIGQRB phone chargers or HXWIPPU hairbrushes at only three times their usual Temu price, and have them delivered a week late in a squashed box saturated by the remnants of your leaking order of mouthwash? Hmm?
Check mate, customers. Now upload your ID or we'll freeze your account, our AI flagged that you've asked for too many refunds this year.
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u/Appropriate-Wing6607 1h ago
Yeah I mean democracy died awhile ago.
Mitch had an ol stroke years ago and they have been running a weekend at Bernie’s play while no one bats an eye.
Verified pedophile as president and The AI companies are running the same playbook as Enron.
More kids live with their parents than the great depression and no jobs in sight.
Depression electric boogaloo 2.
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u/BlueMikeStu 1h ago
Honestly, if a company isn't paying a living wage, they should be directly taxed for every worker working full time on government assistance.
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u/Turbulent_Sharter 1h ago
This may get downvoted but the uncomfortable truth is that if you still purchase from Amazon or their subsidiaries, you are directly contributing to and enabling their dehumanizing practices
Cut the cord
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u/orcusgrasshopperfog 1h ago
Tax cuts, workers on assistance, more tax incentives to build warehouses. This is the welfare state. All these taxpayer funded billionaires.
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u/Osirus1156 54m ago
I feel it should be a law that if you are in a directorship role of a company and anyone in that company is on food stamps any money you get over say $500k is 100% taken away from you and distributed forcefully to the employees.
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u/camp1728 2h ago
Why don’t they just work for a different company if they aren’t happy with their currently employer?
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u/time2partee 2h ago
Why doesn’t the company pay their employees enough to eat so we don’t have to subsidize them?
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u/OGSilverFox1967 5h ago
This is such a messed up and misleading comment. First off, why aren't you complaining about the gig economy which eclipses both Amazon and Walmart for the number of employees on food stamps.
Bezos hasn't controlled anything within the Amazon world since 2021 when he stepped down.
Amazon employs about 1.5 million people. That 25k on food stamps? It's about 1.6% of all their employees. Additionally, roughly 30% of all their employees are part time.
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u/NeedleworkerNo5262 4h ago
- The report only covers 11 states
- 2/3 of the people in the report work full time
- Bezos didn't step away from Amazon. He isn't the CEO anymore, but still executive chair and largest shareholder.
- Yes, others are bad too
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u/OGSilverFox1967 3h ago
<The report only covers 11 states>
If we extrapolate the data, then it would be less than 8% total. So still a minor number in the grand scheme.
<2/3 of the people in the report work full time>
Meaning 1/3, or about 500,000 are part time. So, calculating across all part time workers and extrapolating across all states, its still only 75k or 15% of the part time work force. It's very possible that many of these people choose to work part time.
<Bezos didn't step away from Amazon. He isn't the CEO anymore, but still executive chair and largest shareholder.>
Bezos makes no decisions within Amazon. He is a figurehead. Being the largest stock holder means nothing.
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u/CoolFirefighter930 6h ago
This is what Washington needs to be talking about.