SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
DannyB chased by a bunch of wild rabid kangaroos writes . . .
Bernie Sanders introduces 'Stop BEZOS' bill to tax Amazon for underpaying workers
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) have introduced a bill that would tax companies like Amazon and Walmart for the cost of employees' food stamps and other public assistance. Sanders' Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act (abbreviated "Stop BEZOS") . . . would institute a 100 percent tax on government benefits that are granted to workers at large companies.
The bill's text characterizes this as a "corporate welfare tax," and it would apply to corporations with 500 or more employees. If workers are receiving government aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), national school lunch and breakfast programs, Section 8 housing subsidies, or Medicaid, employers will be taxed for the total cost of those benefits. The bill applies to full-time and part-time employees, as well as independent contractors that are de facto company employees.
Sanders announced his plans for the proposal last month. He emphasized today that "this discussion is not just about Amazon and [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos." But as the bill's name would suggest, he's been particularly critical of Amazon and Bezos who became the richest person in the world (and modern history) last year. "The taxpayers in this country should not be subsidizing a guy who's worth $150 billion, whose wealth is increasing by $260 million every single day," [ . . . rest omitted . . . ]
Food stamps, School Lunch, Medicaid, great . . . but what about employees who must shop at Walmart?
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday September 06 2018, @03:49AM (16 children)
The way I understand things is that you are able to get food stamps, rent assistance etc if your wage is below a certain level of income - irrelevant of what job you are in.
By that, I mean, you'll get the same benefits whether you earn $5 an hour for 40 hours work, or $200 an hour for one hour of work per week.
So if your benefits lessen the more you earn, isn't there perfectly good incentive already for people to go out and find better jobs than the ones in this discussion? There was an interesting debate a while back about whether a person in a mcjob (whatever low paying shitty simple job) should have the expectation that the work will cover the needs of an adult/family. The concensus seemed to arrive that no, no-one thought a fast food, or cafe job actually HAD to prvide a wage that would give you enough for a mortgage along with all the rest. Low paying jobs are simply that - people should take them temporarily or to supplement other income, or while they are young and not having full living expenses.
These jobs should be a starting point, not a goal in your career aspirations, shouldn't they?
If people moved in and out quickly enough - or not into these jobs at all, the companies would automatically raise their wages to get the workers they need. With higher wages, no need for as much assistance from the government...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @05:51AM (4 children)
Yet, that's not what's happening, because lots of people depend on these jobs.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 06 2018, @12:22PM (2 children)
My employer is a near minimum wage employer in the US. I see plenty of people use those jobs as a starting point contrary to your assertion. And virtually everyone I know who holds a nice job has held minimum wage jobs in the beginning. One wonders why you continue to insist on this viewpoint. Is life too easy for you and the people you care about, that you need to invent false problems?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @04:40PM (1 child)
"Lots of" != "all"
Dont worry, your agenda is an illusion and nothing willl be lost when it dissipates.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 07 2018, @03:41AM
In a population of over 300 million you can always find "lots" of exceptions to anything. Doesn't mean a thing until we know how big that group actually is.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 06 2018, @04:50PM
This is true. And it's happening because they are fucking worthless in the employment market. Why this is so and why they do nothing to change that fact is what we should be asking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday September 06 2018, @06:28AM (8 children)
I used to think similarly -- that McJobs are for HS kids who need pocket money or college kids who need beer money -- but more and more it seems there isn't much in the economy beyond these crappy jobs. With college and grad school you can do OK (after spending half your working life knocking down that six figure student loan, I know, this is what I did) but its some ugly sort of elitism that says only those who can go to the extreme lengths of education deserve a decent living. And even then, many high skill jobs are even more susceptible to offshoring than manufacturing is -- a doctor in ThirdWorldIstan can sit in a little room with a networked computer and read MRIs quite easily, much more easily and cheaply than an entire factory can be rebuilt elsewhere.
If we don't start protecting jobs at home, all we'll have left are these menial low skill positions. Even skilled labor in the construction trades isn't a safe haven and face downward pressure on wages due to immigration -- http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-construction-trump/ [latimes.com] -- although the article tries to paint it otherwise, this is pretty telling:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fliptop on Thursday September 06 2018, @11:12AM
Where I live, pipeliners and coal miners start at around $25/hr. Welders and truck drivers can make that much too. I have a client who's a contractor and he's hiring carpenters, plumbers and electricians starting at $20/hr. No college education is needed for any of these positions.
But to get your foot in the door, you have to pass a drug test.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 06 2018, @12:25PM (6 children)
You could have always not gotten that six figure loan. Most college students have figured out how to do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 06 2018, @02:51PM (3 children)
"most"
citation needed
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 07 2018, @03:39AM (2 children)
Note that if a majority had six figure debt, then the average could be no lower than $50,000 (assuming the absolutely minimum possible thresholds to get the lowest possible average, 50% had exactly $100k in debt to barely qualify as "six figure debt" and the other 50% minus one person had exactly $0 in debt).
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:23PM (1 child)
So what you're saying is that you're technically correct because you hyperbolically quoted an inflated figure, but once your number is fixed your argument is still wrong, or at least irrelevant. Nice.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:25PM
Oops, looks like my Grump Ray was mistargeted--it was actually hemocyanin who introduced the "six figures." My apologies.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday September 06 2018, @04:21PM (1 child)
Pay your way through college AND a rigorous grad school program on a McJob? *eyeroll*
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 06 2018, @04:39PM
Though risky, a McJob provides opportunities to sell high-profit-margin drugs from your workplace. No need to pay rent, utilities, salaries on your store--McEmployer is paying those. I have seen such operations [eater.com] called things like "brick-fil-a [t.co]".
(Score: 5, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday September 06 2018, @01:42PM (1 child)
The problem is that according to Forbes, in 2015 42% of American workers make $15 per hour or less and the great majority of them are above the age of 21. So the competition to move up above that is colossal, and employers don't have a lot of upward pressure on raises. "I want $13 an hour!" "I can find someone else to do the job for $9. Get lost." A manager at a gas station, Lowes, Walmart, hotel, restaurant, Pep Boys, etc... can make a perfectly decent income. But most of those places will have twenty or thirty or fifty or two hundred employees. There is no way, ever, that enough leadership positions will be available for all of the people with the intelligence, education, and discipline. Most of them are stuck at the lower wage level, and when a better position opens up there are fifty competitors.
An urban area changes the problem but doesn't improve it. There are thousands more jobs but hundreds of thousands more competitors. So there might be thirty better-paying positions in a two block radius but instead of thirty competitors for one position you've got two thousand competitors for the thirty positions. Most people still lose.
You're living with the myth that the market is slightly fair, that if you just put in enough work everything will work out. It's just not true. There are plenty of job openings in the current market, but if every good person that worked hard was going to have a job available we would need 30 million new $20/hour+ jobs to appear. It'll never happen. It's unavoidable - if you can't carve out a niche in the supply and demand curve you are screwed, and by definition of how supply and demand works most people can't. Plumbers make good money, but if a lot of people in an area become plumbers to make an income then average plumber pay drops. The market fundamentally screws most of the population.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 07 2018, @03:42AM
Why aren't you considering demand? More employers means more competition for those workers. It works both ways.