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Amazon Is Offering a Discount on Prime For People On Government Assistance (theverge.com)
Amazon announced on Tuesday that it is offering a discount on Prime membership for US customers participating in a number of government assistance programs. From a report: Anyone with a valid Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, which disburses funds for programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), is eligible for Prime's discounted monthly price of $5.99. Prime's normal price is a $99 a year, or a monthly fee of $10.99. From a report:
I got's Obama Phone. He gonna pay my mortgage. He gonna gets me Prime. He gonna gets me diapers.
Keep Obama in President!!
And free two-day shipping, and free ebooks, and free--
Wait, why am I working again?
Well, I'm sure this thread will be completely full of reasoned and polite discussions, free of any strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks, trolling, or general asshattery.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The linked article doesn't mention that Amazon is going after EBT dollars that typically gets spent at Walmart.
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-lowers-prime-cost-for-shoppers-on-food-stamps-2017-6
This is "good business" - setting up Amazon to suck at the teat of public money.
Just like the scooter sales guys who advertise that the government will pay for it all.
Just like the guys buying diabetic test strips.
Now one can get your government money and have your junk food delivered- you won't have to get off your couch.
OTOH, for the parent who's legitimately working/struggling, this might be a good thing. One less stop to make on the way home.
But let's not pretend Bezos did this for altruistic reasons.
They just sell the samps on Ebay and buy liquor and cigarettes.
I guess there's the advantage of doing things month to month if you can't afford a year long subscription, but $99/12 months=$8.25/month, so only a $2.25/month saving.
I didn't even know that you could get Amazon Prime on a single month basis.
I would have thought that people using EBT cards have more pressing problems than dealing with the high cost of Amazon Prime subscriptions...
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
Feeding creates a dependent population that is a potential health hazard and makes a costly mess.
Slashdot gets all worked up over "basic income" but when that income comes out with a less palatable name such as welfare or benefits it suddenly doesn't want it. Remember when your javascript barista job gets sent to Indian Robots you will want it.
I just have a really tough time with EBT, SNAP and all these hand-out programs. They really do help about 1% of the people who actually need the help, the rest are loafs who are freeloading, skating taxes and doing cash-only jobs to provide the illusion of being in need of assistance.
I have remarkably close ties to people who work as clerks, cashiers and customer service positions at gas stations and grocery stores. The you-wouldnt-believe-what-happened-at-work stories on a weekly basis revolve around: 1) the HUGE thousands of dollars balances most people carry on EBT, 2) the amount of soda, junk food and useless commodities spent using EBT and 3) Using their own wads of 'cash' on booze, cigarettes, and anything else that would be shamed upon on the cant-have-that list. Troll that all you want, but it's true: the upper majority of people using these services DONT need them, and the ones who need it to and are working make too much to use it. Why even get a job, when you can get upwards of $300-800/month for free?
Amazon (et al. Silicon Valley) doesn't really give two shits about making this easier for people, it's just another soon-to-be-exploited population of people to drive even more revenue and dependencies on their consumer services. If they aren't trying to look for new hire opportunities, why wouldn't they also try to open up to a completely new demographic the same people types to get even more revenue streams?
All this does is keep on enabling a broken government hand-out system, not police it or make it better.
Very glad I never paid for Amazon Prime. And now I never will unless they offer me it for the discount price!
Based upon the rhetoric I've been hearing from certain quarters of our population, I hear that all folks on EBT drive brand new pink Cadillacs. And if you walked into a Cadillac dealership, you'd see "WIC" signs on the pink ones.
Government Cheese flows more freely..
We actually put blood and sweat in for society. What about disabled veterans who, in that vast majority of cases and despite service related injuries, continue as productive members of society? I hate to be that guy, but this really sounds like "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need".
They really do help about 1% of the people who actually need the help, the rest are loafs who are freeloading, skating taxes and doing cash-only jobs to provide the illusion of being in need of assistance.
We have a robust fraud investigation office servicing all levels of the welfare system. Inappropriate provisioning is mostly in the bureaucracy, where the rules don't cover people with real need and so the caseworkers use their judgment and bend the rules a tad. Actual abuse is approximately zero.
2) the amount of soda, junk food and useless commodities spent using EBT
Some of that is bad habits (soda...); some of it is a matter of people not being able to carry perishable goods or afford the higher-priced not-junk-food. Unsurprisingly, people end up eating what's cheap--in a number of ways. I've found I can design robust food plans on as little as $25/month for 2000kcal/day with several hours of Internet research and strict budgeting and planning behaviors--in other words, several dozen times the effort anyone invests. You have to know what you're going to eat pretty much every day 2 months in advance, what every meal is going to cost, and so forth. This also devotes a surprising amount of time to cooking and cleaning.
At a point, it consumes your life. Likewise, people may not have such planning skills. For the most part, they all believe they don't have another choice.
3) Using their own wads of 'cash' on booze, cigarettes, and anything else that would be shamed upon on the cant-have-that list
Pretty much how it works. A lot of welfare is supplemental--you can even get unemployment if you have a part-time job (20 hours = employed for half a job). That means you have an earmarked account (EBT) and your own personal money (cash).
Why even get a job, when you can get upwards of $300-800/month for free?
For UBI systems, the answer is "to gain more purchasing power and enhance your standard-of-living." For the current public aid system, you're comparing your $10.25/hr welfare with the $10.75/hr FedEx warehouse job that's going to replace and terminate your welfare benefit, so why do you want to get a job making 50 cents an hour?
If they aren't trying to look for new hire [slashdot.org] opportunities
People aren't born with the Computer Programmer DNA. Talent is a myth and poor people aren't going to have a special magical power welling from their souls. The whole idea is mysticism, same shit as homeopathy.
There are people who have had time to train themselves about things and are bad at life in general, so are potentially-useful employees. Better than any other employee? Doubtful. Even given the likelihood in large numbers, you're wasting resources digging for diamonds crapped out into the horse manure when you have access to actual diamond mines.
All this does is keep on enabling a broken government hand-out system, not police it or make it better.
Assuming the prices are better, it allows access to purchase more goods with the same money. That means maybe they can afford $12 family-pack toilet paper instead of $16 family-pack at Wal-Mart, and buy those $8 worth of fruits-and-vegetables (or, you know, pork--actual healthy food) instead of $5 worth of junk food.
There's something else you missed: Unemployment trends toward ~5% in the U.S. (2% in Japan, etc.). If we get lower unemployment, people who plan to take a later retirement generally get laid off less, and job opportunities tend to draw more people to exit college early. If we get higher unemployment, those late retirements slow, and people go as far as taking up grad school to avoid the barren job market (2008 Great Recession, that happened a lot). A low-unemployment market also fails to discourage household members seeking second incomes (e.g. bored hou
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...would act like that here.
When exactly do "clerks, cashiers, and customer service positions at gas stations and grocery stores" see the balance someone has on their debit/EBT card?
"the HUGE thousands of dollars balances most people carry on EBT" Define most, what percentage? Also do you have a source other than anecdote?
I don't see how this is a good deal. Food stamps can't be used for the Prime membership cost (but lest's put that aside).
The price of food tends to be so overpriced, unless you are ordering from the middle of nowhere it's a waste of food stamps. Took a quick peak and a package of Thomas' English Muffins is priced for $12.19. What. a. deal.
I guess families are supposed to survive on one-fifth (or less) of the food they can get by getting their butt to the grocery store.
Sure, I'm sure you could find a good deal on there somewhere, but you have to wade through a swamp of overpriced crap to find them and it's all on the taxpayer's dime if they tired of looking. There should be a separate search setting for purchases geared to the food stamp customers.
That product was being sold by a storefront and was not prime eligible. But yes there are lots of items like that being sold by third-party stores. They tend to be high priced because they are nostalgic foods or items you cannot get in all places so those store fronts are going for that one time sell that people want for some special reason.
At least not right now. Things like cloths, soap, house good, etc are often half the price on Amazon. There's a phrase for it: The High Cost Of Being Poor. Meaning you're too poor to take advantage of cost saving measures.
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According to their We don't accept EBT, food stamps, or any other payment method not listed for grocery purchases.
I guess this is all moot. Rethinking the article, I guess this only is a discount on Prime membership, not opening up the floodgates for EBT purchases from an overlooked market.
I was paying $10.99 and was considering dropping it because I don't really use it that much, but I'll keep it at $5.99. I don't order food from it because I live 5 blocks from a grocery store, but I do watch stuff on Prime & buy stuff every few months.
Be seeing you...
$72/yr used to be what Amazon charged for Prime until Bezos got greedy.
However, Prime isn't that good of a deal. "Free Shipping" isn't really free. When you compare prices of alternate suppliers linked to an item you find that their price for that time, plus their shipping charges, usually is close to or equals Amazon's Prime price for that item.
That leaves movies. Pay $10/mo to see movies you wouldn't walk across the street to see? No thanks. One can do that on NetFlix for $8/mo. But, no matter. What come out of Hollywood isn't worth watching.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I was a food stamps recipient---I now realize that bad diet is, /yr for me,
like Monsanto, a war on the people.
The program is for 'People on Government assistance.'
It seems that only EBT holders need apply, not us Baby-burnin',
mother-stabbin', father-rapin' VietNam vets on a VA disability such as myself--Hell Vit-NAM is just some place where they're startin' to make them newfangled hard drives and such so far as Bezos is concerned, not some place where Rockefeller and Cardinal Spellman (Look up Spelly's War) started a war against some far off people no one I knew was mad at nor whose country we wanted to go to---Long Story short, $100
Droolio Iglesias
Also, what are they buying, that's so time-sensitive, if they're that impoverished?
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