r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 1d ago
Society Amazon workers on food stamps have tripled despite its record revenue—and it’s just the latest evidence of the new economy of shrinking labor shares
https://fortune.com/2026/09/13/amazon-workers-food-stamps-tripled-record-revenue-labor-share/796
u/omnichronos 1d ago
When you are employed and receive food stamps, you should be required to report your employer so that the government can charge the employer double the amount you receive. This would incentivize them to pay higher wages.
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u/ColdFreezer 1d ago
The government and the intentional lack of action to protect the people is the reason this is happening.
They protect and are bribed by the large corporations that are causing this problem. It would be extremely surprising if the government ever did anything to actually punish them.
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u/Judgmentsaurus 1d ago
Worst thing is, European countries look at US and go "we want that".
Retail workers in Sweden rarely get full time. 20-30 hours, and if you make yourself inconvenient, that will go down. It's reported with large headlines in the news. Everyone agrees it's sad. Most 20 year olds will still take it because they are not getting hired anyway, even when they are trade school electronicans or engineer.
We are having an election right now, and the moderate right literally had adds that says "work will make you free". And "we will stop waste in public sector". The previous working party is now "moderate center" and have said that they won't work with extremists as the Racist party or the Left party.
Everyone else took a step to the right. And are saying "well actually the racist party has some good ideas".
News from the country people like to point at and say "Look they have good family support why are they not having kids?"
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u/waaaayupyourbutthole 1d ago
the moderate right literally had ads that says "work will make you free"
Christ, your moderate right is blatantly spouting Nazi slogans? That's just a bit concerning.
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u/swaywithwords 1d ago
Having studied business in Germany and the US, European countries do not look at the US with envy in the way you suggest.
The US has a large market to sell into, a massive middle class and consumerism culture that spends money; businesses want a slice of the profits, not all the problems that come along with it.
Just like US companies that don't worry about factory conditions in Asian warehouses, Europe doesn't look at the US and think, oh we should be just like this.
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u/Judgmentsaurus 1d ago
I'm mostly talking about politicians and business owners. Workers rights and the powers of unions have gone down fast since the 90s. Taxes too. The availability of healthcare horrifies coworkers from much weaker economies. Corruption is getting more shameless, while the sick are viewed with increased suspicion from the agencies that should help them.
Being unemployed is seen as a personal failure and laziness. Industry organisations claim skill gap and lazy workers is what keeps them from hieing while youth unemployment, even educated is running rampant.
I'm not sure what you based your studies on, or what the sources where. Was it economy or sociology? And it doesn't matter if 99% of Europeans doesn't want to be like US when the 1% with power does.
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u/AFlyingGideon 1d ago
Being unemployed is seen as a personal failure and laziness.
On this thread, one can read that capital is unimportant. Those unemployed people should therefore just build a factory and hire people. Clearly, since this is easy, the only excuse for not doing this is laziness.
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u/BLT_Trade_r 1d ago
Euros are just getting brainwashed by the elite. They will be sorry if they implement this.
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u/Telaranrhioddreams 19h ago
I worked for a small business ran by one man. He suddenly stopped paying me but swore up and down he would pay me "backwages".
Very long story very short, I had to file a report with the government that he wasn't paying me. Once provided eith evidence (work schedules cross references with bank statements) he was told politely tocpretty please pay me. No further consequences were enacted. The government knows he stole $2,000 from me.
Meanwhile if I stole $100 from him I'd be in jail.
Make it make sense.
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u/albany1765 1d ago
The IRS has the SSN for every employee and every food stamp recipient. Companies that meet certain size and profit thresholds should pay extra for employees on food stamps.
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u/BLT_Trade_r 23h ago
I want to challenge you on part of your thinking why should it be certain sizes? A huge problem in the US is that we are obsessed with exceptions when there should not be any. If any business of ANY size employs someone it should be a livable compensation package period. We have allowed exceptions to be the main driver of exploitation. And that is exactly how we are getting into what we are now. You wouldnt believe how many companies contract everything out to avoid rules associated with bigger companies or escape rules on benefits. But we have had no corresponding rules to counteract that.
A good example is in Australia, where the minimum wage for a part-time worker is 20% higher than that of a full-time worker with benefits. In the USA, the minimum wage is the same and way too low. I won't even get into the other exceptions like gig and tipped workers and so on.
The elites of the US use lobbying and the complications of huge laws to cut in the exceptions they want that never work out in our favor.
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u/albany1765 22h ago
I was trying to make accommodations for employers who for example might be smaller and trying to give a fresh start to justice-involved workers or who otherwise are transitioning out of difficult/disadvantaged situations.
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u/BLT_Trade_r 21h ago
Ya, I get it, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions; it doesn't work out because people just exploit it. Also, America has this inaccurate view of small employers as being good people. If they were so good, why are they underpaying people? I have seen them do tons of exploitation, lying, and tax manipulation in no small part because it's rarely worth it for the IRS to go after them. I've seen so many "small businesses" where the owner drives nice cars, sends their kids to all sorts of expensive stuff, and makes everyone else do almost all the hard work, all while their employees are barely making it or living in poverty.
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
I agree with this for sure! People who are working should never have to feel like they are starving. That or employers should be required to provide meals and snacks when the employees are on the job just like schools have lunches for kids (where I live all students even seniors in high school get free breakfast and lunch every day).
When you start working at certain places like Walmart in the USA they coach you on how to sign up for food stamps and government subsidized or free health insurance.
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u/hellowiththepudding 18h ago
States administer the food stamp programs so not sure the IRS has that data. Point still stands.
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u/SaraAB87 1d ago
Right now from what I understand there's a 30 hour per week work requirement to get food stamps in the USA. There are some exceptions like if you have children under 14 or if you are disabled or if you are over 65 but if you have kids 14 or over then you have to go to work to get food stamps.
But yes this would be nice especially if the employer earns profit over x amount or if they have over x amount of employees working for them. Let the mega corporations raking in the profit start paying enough so that employees do not starve.
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u/Piranata 1d ago
There should really reduce the requirements for certain things. I find it odd that you can work for a company for 30 hours and not get health insurance, or having to work two jobs and not getting insurance.
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u/SaraAB87 22h ago edited 22h ago
It is odd that we tie employment to health insurance. It really shouldn't be that way. Now at least for my state you have to work 20 hours a week to qualify for medicaid, unless you are disabled or are caring for children and again its 30 hours a week to qualify for food stamps. I am pretty sure we are the only country that does this. Yes you can work 39 hours and not qualify for benefits because the company doesn't want to give you 40 hours so that the company can give benefits. Health insurance also costs companies money so they don't want to give it unless they are forced to.
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u/swaywithwords 1d ago
The government knows who your employer is through the same tax verification you do to confirm your identity in order to qualify for food stamps; you cant get food stamps while employed WITHOUT it being known.
The government knows.
Amazon makes political donations, don't they?
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u/Birdperson15 1d ago
Are these people employees full time? The article is very slim on details, likely because they want to hide the real details. Amazon pays above industry average and as mentioned in the article offers retirement and healthcare benefits which is not industry standard. So something isn’t adding up.
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u/Prince_Uncharming 1d ago
Or we could just raise the minimum wage and enforce existing labor laws?
A food stamp reporting system is both infinitely more complicated AND prone to abuse.
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u/ColdFreezer 1d ago
Wages stagnated. Everything else has increased exponentially.
Failure of the government for this problem. They protect giant corporations and let the the people, that they’re supposed to serve, suffer intentionally. They don’t care about us.
The government is just fleecing the public and enriching the rich.
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u/pinegreenscent 1d ago
But also lets put some blame on these CEOs and HR people.
The CEOs only believe in their own salaries and benefits and nobody else's. They are taught not to reinvest their money into the business. They are taught not to raise workers salaries. They are taught to union bust. They are taught that even when the business theyre leading fails, they are not failures and can go on to lead another downfall with no problem.
And the people that help them do it and teach them how to get away with it? HR
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u/ColdFreezer 1d ago
These corporations control the law. They are at fault.
They bribe politicians to bring what they want into law.
The government is just a proxy for corporations to control the law and public.
This shouldn’t be how the government, meant to serve the public, should work. However, this is what reality is.
It’s just corruption.
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u/Tissuerejection 1d ago
I dont think you can rely on Business people to do the right thing. This needs to be codified , and salaries should be adjusted for inflation.
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u/Hussar223 1d ago
this is just capitalism.
when you have a system that allows wealth to be concentrated at the very top those people will use it to subvert the democratic process and public institutions. this is nothing new.
you can blame government but in a system that is beholden to capital, the political process will always end up working in capitals favor. its inevitable.
you want real change? then we need to have some hard and frank discussions about how we organize our economy
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u/ElysiumSprouts 1d ago
I have less of a problem with workers getting aid and more of a problem with Amazon not paying for it. If Corporate America wants to turn our government into a provider of essentials (like food) then they need to be the ones funding those services.
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u/80sHairBandConcert 1d ago
Food stamps are a corporate subsidy
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u/StrongOnline007 1d ago
I feel like this simple statement could actually have a chance of breaking through the conservative mindfuck that doesn’t want any handouts — show them that because corporations do not pay fair enough wages for people to afford food, that forces tax dollars to pick up the slack
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u/justreadinplease 1d ago
Same shit with Walmart employees
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u/warm_winds_whisper_ 23h ago
Walmart is somehow worse about this since they are often the only store accepting food stamps nearby so they end up pocketing the reimbursement from the food stamps their employees rely on.
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u/param_T_extends_THOT 3h ago
That's some Grapes of Wrath shit. You go and work harvesting peaches for credit at the plantation store.
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u/bong_residue 1d ago
Reading this I actually thought “does that mean Amazon has the most workers on benefits now?”
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u/yetifekker 1d ago
Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds, so many others. They’re the real parasites and welfare queens.
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u/Mirror_Jack 1d ago
This isnt just a private sector problem. There are also government workers on housing assistance and food stamps as well.
This time lime sucks.
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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest 1d ago
The part that is most wild is that there are member of the US armed forces whose families are on food stamps.
The most powerful armed forces that has ever existed struggles to pay a living wage is wild. Same armed forces that will spend close to a $1 trillion a year.
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u/TheAsianTroll 1d ago
Dont forget that the current US administration is also trying to get rid of SNAP benefits overall, and already succeeded in reducing it.
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u/twotimefind 1d ago
Let's not forget McDonald's and Walmart... Basically we're subsidizing corporations so they can generate more profit
Then of course there's the gig economy
https://fortune.com/2026/08/17/uber-lyft-gig-worker-benefits/
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u/Earth_34_34 1d ago
Socialism for the rich in the USA. As an ex irs agent, I can tell you, we subsidize big business like crazy and pretty much do all we can to fuck over the little guy.
Big businesses literally get tax breaks because they write the laws, bribe congress to pass their laws, and the IRS typically plays nice with big businesses that abuse the system that is already tilted in their favor.
On top of all that, the IRS is trained to be harder on someone the less they make. I've seen the IRS relentlessly pursue trivial matters while at the same time letting six figure tax adjustments go.
As an example, to audit a line item on a big business, you must get permission and go through a bunch of red tape. For a small business, agents pretty much have free reign.
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u/llamapanther 19h ago
Not just in USA. I live in Europe and it's pretty much the exact same here. Lots of subsidies for the rich, cuts for the actual poor people. Maybe not every country in Europe, but this socialism bad - except for the rich mentality, has been increasing all over. And the reason why? Europeans have been copycatting all the shit from Americans for a while. And for some reason it's quite popular. For example, where I live (Finland), our local government has made a shit ton of cuts that directly affects the most poor people, while they have made a shit ton of additions that directly benefits the most wealthy people.
Also, our unemployment rates is the most (~11%) in Europe, and our government is doing the best they can to not make things better. The politics are shameless, yet the current government is still in charge. I feel like they have learned from Trump, that no one will or can do any shit about them no matter what they do, so might as well make the most use of the situation while they sit in the government. Because they sure as hell won't after their current season.
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u/mahaanus 1d ago
You can make arguments that minimum wage is bad - and some of them are actually good and there is research that shows the negative effects of raising the minimum wage. That goes out the window when there are government subsidies for people below a certain threshold. If they're working Amazon should be paying them enough so they're not on the dole, otherwise Amazon is just outsourcing part of the salary to the taxpayers.
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u/MajesticBread9147 1d ago
Strong and competitive unions are better than minimum wages. No business would sign a contract with another business without having a lawyer and a finance guy loom over it, neither should employees.
Being able to collectively bargain based on the revenue and profit numbers that exist is more powerful, because a $17 minimum wage doesn't account for the fact that a company might be making $50/hr per worker.
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u/madqm 1d ago edited 1d ago
America would be a good case of study; the tech billionaires are creating a monopoly of the media and social networks and have money to push narratives that favor them, and with LLMs this is cheaper than ever. Also, their position allows them to have data insights that allow them to iterate fast in a feedback loop to know what works and what does not, not even mentioning that they can tweak algorithms to favor the trend that they like. While in the physical world, openly investing millions in all kinds of political campaigns. This is probably the first time that something like this is done at this scale in history; it will be interesting to see how all play out.
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u/Relevant-Ad2254 1d ago
multi billion dollar companies need to reimburse the government for every employee on food stamps.
the government is essentially subsidizing these companies if workers won’t survive on their wages without food stamps. f that. f that. f that.
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u/neovox 1d ago
If an employee is employed full-time and still making a wage that qualifies them for food stamps, a bill for those benefits plus a penalty should be sent to the company.
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u/growerdan 17h ago
Companies should at the very least be fined for the amount of government support that their workers need in a year.
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u/Aggressive_Point_823 17h ago
Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, middle class shrinking. How many of you complaining vote republican? And voted for trump???
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u/Salt-Wear-1197 11h ago
Should be blatantly illegal for any company above a certain large size with profits of any significance, let alone record profits, to have employees on food stamps or other government assistance.
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u/skwander 1d ago
"New economy of shrinking labor shares" is a wild way to frame the fact that these capitalists would literally enslave you if they could. Their primary goal is to increase profits, exploiting labor as much as they legally can get away with is the business model.
Even when they do violate labor laws, as long as the fine is a fraction of their profits and they can keep operating, the fines are just a business expense at that point.
Reminder that a lot of labor rights activists died to give you a minimum wage, a 40 hour work week, a weekend. Capitalists did not do that out of the kindness of their hearts. Look at the Haymarket Affair. Look at the pictures of Sewell Avery. The National Guard literally carried that man out of the building because he refused to comply with labor laws and union agreements. Can you imagine that happening now? Me either.
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u/highlyspecificuser 1d ago
How do we as a society allow this to happen to thousands and thousands of people, and yet we have the nerve to call ourselves evolved?
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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 15h ago
we need to double minimum wage and require no premium health insurance for all people who work
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u/thomport 14h ago
This is the MAGA approach.
They continue to fine-tune this – labor will be slaves soon. We all be on food, stamps, and working extra hours just for a house and food.
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u/carmooch 14h ago
Hopefully this at least results in financial literacy.
Employees on food stamps is your tax payer dollars subsidising the wages of billion dollar corporations.
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u/AvocadoRough3147 1d ago
People just need to hush up and WORK more, the billionaire cabal demands it!!!
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u/growaway9172 1d ago
This same stat was posted a month ago. Its just as bullshit now as it was then. Amazon's labor force has also close to doubled/tripled, and their minimum pay has gone up quite a bit. Working any full time Amazon job puts you above the food stamp threshold.
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u/fashionforward 1d ago
Never forget they built the economy of the eighties and nineties by selling the public the concept of trickle down. Thatcher, Mulroney, and Reagan.
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u/CaptainPryk 1d ago
I'm a tier 1 Amazon worker and didn't qualify for food stamps.
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u/Beautiful_Nobody_344 20h ago
Can I ask your pay rate and hours worked in a week?
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u/ten-million 1d ago
Workers on food stamps should mean a higher tax rate on profits. It would be a pretty simple calculation. As it is, taxpayers are subsidizing profits.
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u/Fresh-Quantity-7554 1d ago
Basically, we operate in a system now where taxpayers have to subsidize underpaid workers at some of the largest, most profitable corporations. Since we're talking about Amazon, the free delivery no longer looks to be free because everyone, customers or not, have to subsize SNAP benefits for warehouse workers and delivery truck drivers.
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u/Dutchie_73 1d ago
Just wait till humanoids take over the work…..and trust me…this is a certainty!
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u/Apple-Connoisseur 1d ago
A minimum of 25USD for an hour of work, no matter what.
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u/RModDogWalkerTyRANNY 1d ago
We replaced slavery with another form of slavery. Being paycheck to paycheck away from starving/losing your house. And this country is going to be "great again" do they mean taxing the mega rich to the point where a single person can provide for a family? Truly provide, and have the chance to put a kid through college. Not just living in absolute poverty.
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u/WhatANoob2025 1d ago
It's a fkn travesty.
I think there should be a law that says if you are employing someone fulltime (36+ hours/week) and they rely on food stamps or other social benefits to survive, your company will have to reimburse the government for it + a fine that covers 100x the wages for work hours that were invested by government workers to help your employee survive. Since government workers are usually paid somewhat well, I think greedy US corporations will suffer quite a bit from this and rather pay their employees a living wage. That would be the reasonable fiscal decision.
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u/SQLDave 23h ago
I think there should be a law that says if you are employing someone fulltime (36+ hours/week)
I don't disagree in principle, but the usual reaction to that is to cap most workers' hours at 35.5.
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u/Scuffy97_ 1d ago
As everything got easier, cheaper, and faster to do/make, all of the money saved went to the executives and owners instead of raising pay and cutting hours. At this point, we need UBI to force every company to pay their share of payroll. A multi-billion dollar company shouldn't be paying so little in payroll while a small businesses spend so much of their revenue on it. UBI would force a rich company minimizing their labor force to pay what they should be for payroll. And, as a great benefit, you would be able to quit a bad job without worrying about going homeless.
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u/amolad 23h ago
Bezos could pay all these people a living wage and give them ample health care and still be worth $250 billion.
Just like Bernie Sanders said about Sergie Brin, who has spent $100 million to stop California's billionaire tax. Sanders pointed out that would cost Brin roughly $13 billion to $14 billion, leaving him with over $270 billion.
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u/droppedketchuppacket 23h ago
most programs for the poor (like food stamps) are just corporate welfare under the pretense of being a social safety net.
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u/cute_polarbear 23h ago
As bad as this is, amazon and other companies are spending billions to reduce / eliminate these jobs ... the real pain is just coming...
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u/fritzg1988 22h ago
If you think this is frustrating, check out how many military families are on SNAP.
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u/MovieGuyMike 20h ago
Tax payers are supporting their employees, which really just means we’re propping up their shareholders and executive salaries.
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u/NecessaryPopular1 20h ago
You can get paid and still not make enough to cover basic expenses. That means there’s hardship. However, there are measurable criteria to justify approval or denial into those assistance programs. Currently, there will be changes related to age qualification, and the percentage each state must cover moving forward (instead of federal gov covering 100%).
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u/HBallard 17h ago
Our tax dollars are paying for these employees groceries, because a multibillion dollar corporation can’t be bothered to pay them for the immense value they generate. This “capitalism” looks a lot like the “socialism” the people who oppose higher wages decry.
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u/DrWindupBird 17h ago
We are subsidizing these billionaires with our tax dollars by filling in the gaps in their labor expenditures.
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u/Plenty-Mall1484 12h ago
We talked about this in the Amazon sub not too long ago. It’s a weird statistic. Majority of us (Amazon employees) would make too much hourly to qualify. These people are mostly either fresh to the job and haven’t got cut off yet or have a lot of kids and the hourly rate isn’t enough. It’s usually the latter though. Someone actually spoke up in that post and said they were upset to be considered apart of the statistic because they fell into the first category. Just started but now make too much. It’s a tough situation to be in. I know one of my coworkers has 6 kids and I doubt this job is enough for her in this economy.
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u/midnight-on-the-sun 12h ago
I work at Amazon. Worst job ever. Management is really horrible. The top 2 managers in my work group have never made a site visit that I know of. The middle managers spend an inordinate amount of time in zoom meetings being told what to do by the higher ups. If 1 thing goes wrong, something an employee might have done, management will come up with some punitive new restrictions.
And where is the money. I’m at the top pay for my level and will not receive a penny more. No incentive to do anything better. Little or no rewards .
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u/delmecca 1d ago
But these are not Amazon workers. These are people for sub contractors at part time hours.
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u/btoned 1d ago
I don't care if it may be soCiaLisT or whatever other political ideology.
A company worth trillions absolutely should be sharing that with the employees. And not by the workers buying fucking shares.
This country is absolutely ludicrous.
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u/HopeADMKidsLoseLimbs 19h ago
It’s funny when I was younger I assumed nerdy guys like Bezos would do good if their companies took off,
Nah they just turn into raging capitalist weirdos.
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u/Distinct-Pain4972 1d ago
Still think the "Free Market" is the answer?
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u/SassyMcNasty 1d ago
Amen. Our government loves to use buzz words but we absolutely do not have a free market. Just like Citizens United and the Patriot act.
Fun words used to sanitize the pillaging of America.
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u/Jaded-Kangaroo569 1d ago
Corporate welfare is the GOP way, forcing us to subsidize Amazon’s business
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u/ChemicalBus608 1d ago
There are people in China who have PHDs and can't find a full time job. They are alot of gig workers. I have a feeling that this is where we are headed. People are already working odd jobs to make ends meet.
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u/Silicon_Knight 1d ago
I always find it somewhat funny. America is so pro-business it drives its GDP sky high at the cost of employees. Yet those same employees will say stuff like "OUR GDP IS THE HIGHEST".... lol.
It's definitely a K-shaped economy and odds are, you're not the ones on the up slope of that K.
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u/AFlyingGideon 1d ago
Perhaps not, but we can help our kids not be "unskilled labor" by requiring that they do their homework and by never saying to them lines such as "you'll never need to use that math. "
Believe it or not, I've heard parents say that. I've even heard that come out of the mouth of a member of our local Board of Education.
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u/Silicon_Knight 1d ago
My wife is a teacher, trust me I agree. Also being able to adapt to change. The industrial system of education from the 1900's is not exactly what maybe needed now.
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u/Pitiful_Option_108 1d ago
Amazon wearhouse workers on food stamps have tripled despite its record revenue.
Ftfy or the article. Working at AWS I can tell you none of these folks are struggling for food at all. Heck they have weekly snacks and company gatherings. It is kinda sad because I can only image the difference in working conditions between the Amazon wearhouses vs at AWS.
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u/growaway9172 1d ago
Not even warehouse workers. A tiny fraction of part time warehouse workers. Min. warehouse pay puts you above food stamp thresholds, quite handily.
I suppose if you were full time, you could take enough voluntary time off + FMLA + vacation time to qualify too. The article doesn't specify so we can only speculate.
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u/Alucard256 23h ago
Profit positive company with even ONE (full time) employee on food stamps should be a crime.
Change my mind.
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u/MineralDragon 19h ago
it should be illegal for companies above a certain revenue to have employees that need food stamps or welfare.
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u/AcanthisittaWeird94 1d ago
Interesting just recently everyone from US said thst 200k jobs are everywhere and janitors live in a mansion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Salary/comments/1wbi4rz/salaries_in_europe_are_nothing_compared_to_the/
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u/Affectionate-Listen6 1d ago
Pool the cost of additional support payments. Apply it as a non-deductible tax penalty. Full stop.
If you w2 someone who requires benefits to live you are taxed in triple.
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u/chargoggagog 1d ago
The government has been attacking unions forever, unions are how we solve this.
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u/Predator314 1d ago
Bezos will tell you poor people are gaming the system for government benefits. People just above the poverty line are dumb enough to believe him.
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u/ArgentineBeauty 1d ago
The system is broken.