Bernie Sanders, leader of the democratic socialist movement, proposed a bill called Stop Bad Employers by zeroing out subsidies act. Many believe that this bill is not about helping others but is mostly a personal attack on Amazon and Amazon’s head chief Jeff Bezos. They say this because the acts “nickname” is called stop Bezos. The purpose of the bill was essentially made to force employers to pay their workers more. The bill would only apply to companies with employees of 500 or more.
Amazon is being targeted because many people dislike how with all of Amazon’s success, the companies owners and chiefs gain thousands while their workers are often gaining the bare minimum. Usually Amazon’s regular employees earn enough money to be eligible for government benefits like food stamps. According to Bloomberg.com “the median annual compensation of an Amazon worker in the U.S is $34,123”. That number is actually above the U.S median for personal income which is $31,000. So are Amazon workers being painted in a different light just to get this bill across? Although some think so, many know that the conditions that a typical Amazon worker works in are very poor and worth much more than the $13 an hour that they are given.
Many state that this bill actually hinders the employees over all. Under this new bill and the conditions that a typical Amazon worker is already in, for every person who works $13 an hour and also receives government benefits of $5 an hour, now with the bill the employer would be charged $5 an hour per employee in tax. So why does this hinder the employee you ask? The employer could respond to this in a couple of ways. One in which he could fire those with the tax, but that would mean firing those who need the help from the government. So they might replace single moms with young teenagers. This might also eliminate workers from receiving food stamps, so those who really need it and depend on it couldn’t receive it. Bernie ideally would like all employers to just raise everyone’s pay to $15 so they aren’t subject to tax that way, but it’s not very likely all employers will do so.
So the question remains on whether or not this bill is more of a personal attack than one of helping the employees who are the real people under attack in this situation.