Or do you feel that US taxpayers should subsidize the predatory business model?

Do you feel that taxpayers should give welfare to Bezos and others?

Sounds like lots of low wage jobs for us old folks with Social Security and Medicare.

As are the majority of Amazon warehouse jobs. And taxpayers subsidize these low wages when the current employees apply for and qualify for taxpayer funded benefits.

Age discrimination is illegal. And every time a WalMart or Amazon employee qualifies for public assistance, that money is subsidizing Bezos and the Walton family so if the corporations had to pay back the money to the taxpayers, there would be every incentive for the employer to pay every employee an actual living wage.

Imagine the boost to the economy if many millions actually received a living wage.

children without asking the question directly. I think requiring a living wage is easier than trying to collect public benefits its back from corporations. How could that be done without a paper trail that leads back to the employee? How would the employee be protected from retaliation?

applied for and received aid that aid would be levied on him in taxes. it would make paying those workers a non-living wage a bad strategy.

Yes, requiring a living wage indexed to inflation would do the same thing, but there is no support for that either.

So how do we change the dialogue?

As rates of unionization fall, so do living standards.

The solution of the rich capitalists: let every poorly paid worker get another job.

When I grew up, almost no one's mother worked. If they did, they were teachers or nurses. Employers paid living wages. I am not trying to invoke the master narrative, just making an observation about the 1950's.

And of the 35% or so of unionized workers, a large number had pensions.

and the "center", so called, has moved farther to the right since that time.

Unfortunately, in my red city Walmart is highend shopping, if one buys at a local retailer. Lots of really old people at the checkout counters that I surveyed before finding one to check out at, an old woman ran that register.

Are these older workers supplementing inadequate Social Security benefits and paying for expensive medications?

I could not believe the number of Mecedes, Lexuses, Landrovers, Infinities in the parking lot near my car. Really didn't expect that.

Walmart represents highend shopping because there is only one other option. In more progressive places there are lots of options. The number of expensive cars in the parking lot reflect that.

On old people working there. The area, like most of Florida is right to work, income inequality is massive here, there are lots of high paid or rich people and a lot more really poor people, most people like hand to mouth (lots and lots and lots of Dollar and Family Dollar stores and some discount grocers that I have never heard of). My guess, old people are working because they have zero retirement savings as most likely worked under the table most of their lives (common here).

Class warfare really accelerated under Reagan, and the country continues to pay the price.

As you suggest there could also be tacit discouragement. Raising wages is a better idea.

I'm sooooo sick of this bullshit argument that the Govt is just not allowed to OWN THINGS (like Public nonprofit corporations).

Or National Credit Union Currency and Coin.

Or every branch of the armed forces.

Believe otherwise. The old timers at least, know danm well that if it were otherwise, parts of the TVA would STILL be without electricity, because anyone else would have priced them out of the market.

Eric Prince is one of the 'new conservatives' tho, who think the govt should NOT get to 'own' it's own military...but should rent Eric Princes Army, instead.

To that I say Eric Prince can go get fucked right in his ear until he dies.

And provide less for more.

is willing to pay you less. I think it's appropriate to fine executives and shareholders of companies that pay such low wages that the workers require public assistance. That's actually a good litmus test - if a high rate of employees from a particular company apply for assistance, and the company is profitable, then the company execs and shareholders are liable for the cost to the public. I wonder how many of these rich people look down on welfare recipients, not seeing that they are the bigger welfare recipients through low wages, subsidies, tax breaks and over-priced government contracts. They love to rail on taxes but don't seem to complain much about wasteful spending if it's spent on them.

onto the US taxpayers, they can get even richer as average taxpayers effectively pay welfare to the 1%.

The hourly pay may be decent, but people aren't allowed to work over 29 hours. I'm sure many people would like to work more than that, but since it's physical work Amazon may find they get better performance with shorter shifts.

Walmart does the same thing, but they also randomly cut workers hours. Managers get bonuses when they keep their labor costs low.

But I worry that paying taxes on SNAP benefits etc will cause an increase in discrimination against people with children.

at the expense of his workers and US taxpayers.

that Amazon claims that a lot of their workers were only part-time employees or seasonal workers and some of them prefer that type of work. (Ref: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/24/thousands-amazon-workers-receive-food-stamps-now-bernie-sanders-wants-amazon-pay-up/? )

If this legislation were enacted would it result in the loss of job opportunities for those that choose not to work full-time? I could see where companies would eliminate those jobs if they believe that they are going to be penalized by such a law.

I can also see that it would become a record keeping hassle as employers have to maintain information about whether employees are receiving SNAP, TANF, public housing, etc. on a monthly basis.

Good for Bernie Sanders for introducing the bill. However, the bill isn't going anywhere this Congressional term and it won't be signed into law by a Republican president. It also won't be signed into a law by a Democratic president if the Republicans control either chamber of Congress.

impact, and there are certainly ways in which this may affect what part time positions are offered, I don't see this having much of an impact on labor hours as a whole. Companies will not reduce employment hours if they need those employees to sustain their production and their incoming profits. Its not as if they already keep a lot of fat on their payroll. If they need the employees they will hire them.

or they may determine that it is cheaper to max out the hours per employee so that they can reduce part-time staff. Salaried workers are sometimes put to work doing tasks that aren't associated with their expertise--I know because I went through it myself having to do data entry after regular hours even though was a programmer/analyst.

Meanwhile, your reply doesn't address the administrative bureaucracy that would be needed to comply with the legislation. Those costs will be substantial and they will be passed on to consumers with the major impact being on the people that are on the lowest economic rungs that see either won't see a wage increase or their wage increase nets out with everything they receive in government assistance.

I'm thankful that this legislation will never be passed because of all of the trees that would be killed and electrical power plants that will need to be built to enact and comply with it. The end result will be that those affected by the legislation will find some way to respond--a few will raise the wages, but many of the others will change their hiring practices or increase the use of automation. Net effect: A lot of time and energy spent chasing a problem that will vanish, but will impose additional permanent costs on business.

And it cannot be the endless austerity for the workers so beloved by the rich.

For Money for the homeless no less. It got repealed in very fast. While people like to bring up companies like Starbucks and Amazon, they leave out companies like Dicks Drive in—a successful though much smaller business and a Seattle icon, who were also against the tax.
https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-council-repeals-homeless-head-tax-on-big-businesses
http://mynorthwest.com/988746/dicks-drive-in-head-tax/?

So while sure, open up the taxation dialogue, because there is an incredible disparity, but consider all aspects.

Unbelievable. I'd love to see a wage scale for the top 100 executives at Amazon.

Don’t think it had an employ Count—one of the flaws of it

Having children greatly increases the odds of needing and receiving assistance, I believe. Corporations do not control how many kids people have, but they can control the odds of workers needing assistance by hiring single people w/o kids, or married couples where the spouse works and they have no kids, and older workers.

This would be good for older workers. Even if they have kids, the kids are grown.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Thanks for the thread guillaumeb.

Sid

I still believe he could have done more to stop Trump instead of less, unless he didn't see as many of us did, how dangerous he was.

I’m sure there a convoluted and fallacious argument for “why” tho

Because Amazon, like Walmart, has driven out many smaller businesses, including independent bookstores. And both pressure their suppliers to cut their own profit margins by selling to Amazon and WalMart for less.

You are welcome.

Within 10 miles of where I live there are 18 bookstores.

In fact, ironically, there are 17 in Burlington Vermont.

As e-commerce becomes more deeply embedded in the fabric of daily life, including for the first time in rural areas, bookstores are undergoing a final shakeout. Family Christian Stores, which had 240 stores that sold books and other religious merchandise, closed this year, not long after Hastings Entertainment, a retailer of books, music and video games with 123 stores, declared bankruptcy and then shut down.



www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/technology/bookstores-final-shakeout.html


Amazon plays a part in this also.

France does and their books are cheap and stores are plentiful. That might actually stand a chance of getting somewhere. This kind of nonsense is pure showboating.

We can allow the GOP to set the terms of the dialogue, or we can fight back. But any fight depends on people being willing to fight.

there's a rotating work force, so it would be a nightmare running down the amounts of all the types of assistance various workers rec'd during the time they were employed by the corporation.

Maybe just a flat tax for if they have a certain percentage of workers receiving any kind of public assistance.

But that too would be called unrealistic and impossible to achieve.

It has to be not just workable, but understandable. A living wage is an excellent place to start. What is that, what does it look like? We can guess a time of inflation will follow this economy and a probable crash of some sort after. 15 dollar an hour minimum wage didn’t destroy Seattle, but it’s certainly not a living wage.

The reason I brought up Seattle is because it’s a very prosperous city with 12,000 homeless. I take care of people with unsure immigration statuses who have no access, NONE, to things like rehab or durable medical equipment. I take care of people who are living in vehicles and discharge others to shelters.

I think that businesses that turn a profit are not inherently evil, whereas businesses that turn an obscene profit without reinvesting into communities are at best amoral and ultimately damaging to society. Yet we have a lot of complex law and tax code to look at. A Republican would tell you that people with more money pay more in taxes, which is true, but what is a million dollars to a billionaire? What is a thousand dollars to someone like me? How do we work with profitable businesses to reinvest in communities and not penalize them for being successful?

I just don’t like the pretense of simplistic answers to complex problems.

but implementation would be complex.


As to your 3rd paragraph, I agree. Note also that the tax code is written by millionaire Congresspeople for their fellow millionaires. But there were very successfull businesses in the 1950s even when the top marginal tax rate was 90%. But there were not any billionaires at that time.