- Later this year, Amazon will begin accepting grocery orders from customers using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal anti-poverty program formerly known as food stamps. As the nation’s largest e-commerce grocer, Amazon stands to profit more than any other retailer when the $70 billion program goes online after an initial eight-state pilot.
But this new revenue will effectively function as a double subsidy for the company: In Arizona, new data suggests that one in three of the company’s own employees depend on SNAP to put food on the table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be around one in 10. Overall, of five states that responded to a public records request for a list of their top employers of SNAP recipients, Amazon cracked the top 20 in four.
Let's be honest. In 10 years many of these people won't even have these jobs. Localized GPS + drones are going to take out so many jobs in warehousing, from people who pick orders all the way to inventory control specialists.
This is a horrifying graph. Amazon aside, every state is Walmart, McDonald's, grocery store. 4 might be grocery store, might be restaurant, 5 might be restaurant, might be grocery store, might be Amazon. I don't know if I've seen a better argument made for a livable minimum wage. Half million employees at Amazon. 75,000 warehouse robots added LAST YEAR ALONE.
Let's be honest. In 10 years many of these people won't even have these jobs. Localized GPS + drones are going to take out so many jobs in warehousing, from people who pick orders all the way to inventory control specialists.
Compared to some of the overt cruelties we see in the world? It's pretty subtle. The psychological, financial, and social impacts it has on workers and their families, once again, if left unanalyzed, pretty subtle. I don't know. None of this is surprising. Everyone knows that Wal-Mart benefits from Foodstamps both in the sense that they are used to subsidize worker pay and at the same time as payment for goods Wal-Mart sells. In the context of this article I can make a statement such as "It only makes sense that Amazon would try and copy that business model" and once again, I've stated nothing profound, only the obvious. You bring these ideas up in a conversation and people respond with "and water is wet." People don't really stop to think about how fucked up all that is, at least, not on the regular. It's like we all willfully trivialize the issue because in doing so, it's easier for us to ignore it, or at least, ignore the idea that we should do something about it.
The other top leader on that list is Kroger. They are in third place in the first three states listed and fourth on the list in the forth state listed, but apparently not bad enough to appear in Pennsylvania's top 10 (Dillion's, Fry's, and Fred Meyer are all Kroger owned companies).
It's worth noting that half of supermarket employees in Seattle are also on food stamps. Maybe Amazon ought to pay people more (and since this was posted they allegedly have addressed it), but much larger swaths of the population in other key jobs still have this problem.
Everything about it is crazy. No sane person “likes this”, but the rules of capitalism foster this behavior. Amazon is financially rewarded in multiple ways for treating people in the worst ways possible. And things are only going to get worse under capitalism. Pretty soon Amazon will have robots to staff the warehouses, and all of these low paid workers will have nothing. Similarly, 1.5 million truck drivers will be replaced by self-driving trucks. Apple will have robotic assembly lines. And so on. Millions of people will be displaced and unemployed as AI, robots and automation advance.
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Regressed? Poor people today live better than rich people of 100 years ago. We don't alleviate poverty, but poor people alleviate their own poverty (or don't) through their own choices. You can't make someone rich and you can't make someone poor. Make the decision to drop out of high school and have five kids and hey you're poor--nobody else did that to you. The Brookings Institute, a think-tank which leans left, identified three things which most help people escape poverty. First was don't have kids until you're married. Next was graduate high school. Last was get a job--any job. They say do those three things and you're extremely likely to not just escape poverty, but at least get into middle class. The best thing to help poor people isn't some big change of a nation's economy; it isn't expanded social services benefits; it isn't anything apart from the poor people themselves learning how to make better decisions.
I don't know that https://www.amazon.com make it
There's still many jobs that won't be automated in the near future, but warehouse jobs aren't one of them. Those workers can barely support themselves as is. What will they do when their warehouse jobs are automated? Not everyone can retool to find new, better jobs. But even those will become scarcer in the future.
It's completely grounded in fantasy, but I kind of have this hope that more people will go the route of learning real skills again and find employment focused around local communities, creating durable goods, etc. I was talking to some really good friends the other day and we were talking about how much more satisfying and engaging work is when it's something physical. Not only is there a tangible product when you're finished, but you can see the progress you're making as you're doing it, motivating you to continue. I think there's probably similar effects when your job is community focused, because you can see first hand day in and day out the difference your job makes in your immediate life. Can people who do something like data processing say the same about their jobs?
A quote that stuck with me about capitalism is something along the lines of "There is a lot of work to be done in the world, and the fact it's not reflected as jobs is a big failing of the system". There is a huge gap IMO between the work that needs to be done on this planet (cleaning our oceans, planting forests, educating people, healing people) the jobs people do. The financial incentives are skewed in a terrible direction and it's a shame.
Programmers would disagree with your sentiment. And they will be the ones with the most job opportunities, along with engineers, and others in applied sciences in the near future. Meanwhile tangible goods will be created by robots, robots that are made by engineers and programmers. What you're talking about -- finding work that is personally satisfying, is something people would and should do as a hobby, or once something like UBI is in place. It's not entirely fantasy. There are less and less jobs due to automation. We will have to solve this problem eventually. I guess the alternative is total economic collapse.
Programmers, engieneers, and scientists are not immune to automation. Neither are people in the legal or medical fields. That shit is coming for all of us. The CEO of GitHub, which caters to coders, thinks automation will bring an end to traditional software programming "My group at work consists of six engineers. I'm certain that by 2030 it will be no more than four getting more work done than today. Automation won't replace us all right away, but it will reduce staff." I used the words "tangible" and "durable," which implies things like handmade, well crafted, made to last. Artisinal stuff, not factory built junk that you can get for cheap off of Amazon. When analysts talk about work, two words that often come up for happy employees is "satisfying" and "meaningful." They're key components to what are perceived as good jobs and important for worker satisfaction. The world's happiest jobs Malcolm Gladwell Says All Great Jobs Have These 3 Qualities That said, serious question, why should we not find our work to be satisfying? The chances of UBI happening are pretty slim, at least here in the states. We can't even get our healthcare or housing straight.Programmers would disagree with your sentiment. And they will be the ones with the most job opportunities, along with engineers, and others in applied sciences in the near future.
Meanwhile tangible goods will be created by robots, robots that are made by engineers and programmers.
What you're talking about -- finding work that is personally satisfying, is something people would and should do as a hobby,
once something like UBI is in place.