Bernie Sanders Introduces 'Stop BEZOS' Bill To Tax Amazon For Underpaying Workers (theverge.com)

A public spat between Amazon Sen. Bernie Sanders over workers' wages escalated Wednesday as the Vermont independent introduced a bill aimed at taxing big companies whose employees rely on federal benefits to make ends meet. From a report: Sanders' Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act (abbreviated "Stop BEZOS") -- along with Khanna's House of Representatives counterpart, the Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protection Act -- 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.

Comments

Good

[XXongo]

Good. Amazon is abusive. And they don't pay taxes. Stop the abuse, make them pay their share, both at once. https://thenextweb.com/insider...

Re:Good

[XXongo]

...and, even better yet, they'll hit Walmart as well. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
https://qz.com/695763/a-web-of-terror-insecurity-and-a-high-level-of-vulnerability-hm-gap-and-walmart-are-accused-of-hundreds-of-acts-of-worker-abuse/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart

Re:Good

[Oswald McWeany]

Good. Amazon is abusive. And they don't pay taxes. Stop the abuse, make them pay their share, both at once.
https://thenextweb.com/insider...

Amazon is taking hits from the left and the right here. Amazon doesn't have a fan in the current white house either. They don't have many allies in DC.

Re:Good

[DalM]

But they do have money.

And in the end, that's all that matters, isn't it?

Re:Good

[AvitarX]

Based on the contract for government cloud, it seems like they do indeed have some allies in DC.

Re:Good

[omnichad]

Should Amazon be responsible for the full-time worker who chooses to have half a dozen children he/she can't afford on their salary?

Nice straw man. Look at both Amazon and Wal-Mart employees. You'll see single mothers with one, maybe two children who need benefits to survive. In the Wal-Mart case, they keep most employees "part-time" because they offer benefits to ALL full-time employees and they don't actually want to offer it to very many. It's very rare to get 32+ hours as a Wal-Mart employee - which drops your wage even further below a 40-hour worker from the start, even at the same hourly rate.

Re:Good

[jriding]

based on my state and a salary of $40,000 a year and 4 kids 2 adults in the household, They would not be eligible for any support except for medical.

So yea amazon and Walmart should be paying.

Re:Good

[taustin]

That's OK. Socialist scion Bernie Sanders has about as much chance of getting a bill outlawing raping babies on live television pass right now as he does of beating Hillary Clinton in the last Presidential primary.

This is a ploy to extract donations from his base for his next reelection run. And that's all it is.

Re:Good

[wkk2]

Good luck keeping a part time job if you are disabled and can only work a few hour with the help of a sympathetic employer.

Re:Good

[Megol]

But taxation is theft!

Re:Good

[JackieBrown]

That's not a straw man argument. Either you know that or you don't know what a straw man argument is.

Look at both Amazon and Wal-Mart employees. You'll see single mothers with one, maybe two children who need benefits to survive.

Honest question, should walmart honestly be required to pay each employee based on their household situation rather than the job itself?

Expecting a job that takes 30 minutes to train with no skill needed to support a single parent (not sure why you had to specify mother instead of parent - I'm a widowed dad of 2 kids) and that parent's family is ludicrous.

Re:Good

[JackieBrown]

Or stop hiring so many people and work to death the fewer people it has left that are now full time but with better benefits.

You do realize this is what will happen? Did you learn nothing after the ACA mandate that lowered the full time requirements from 40 hours to 32 hours?

Stop coming up with regulations when you have no idea how employment actually works in a non-centrally run economy.

Re:Good

[omnichad]

When you systematically give 30 hours per week to a larger number of part time employees just to avoid having full time employees, you really should be responsible for the fallout. There are very few of these employees that don't want full-time hours. Instead, Wal-Mart can claim that 100% of full-time employees get all these great benefits and they're a great place to work - all while only having a handful of full-time employees.

Expecting a job that takes 30 minutes to train with no skill needed to support a single parent (not sure why you had to specify mother instead of parent - I'm a widowed dad of 2 kids) and that parent's family is ludicrous.

I specified single mother just because I'm thinking of specific, real people and not statistics. That 30 minutes to train really only applies to people who have much better intelligence and education - it takes longer than that. Giving up all of your working hours to anyone should be worth the huge percentage of a human life that it is. There is no excuse to cheap out just because a job is too "lowly."

Re:Good

[cayenne8]

Hey, their stock is doing gangbusters....making me money!!

Re: Good

[jd]

We live in a society. The college education of one pacts directly the well-being of thousands of others and the profitability not just of where they work but dozens of companies enmeshed in a complex web.

We are all just nodes in the web, ultimately it is the web that exists. There is no individual responsibility because individuals affect too many others and you can't calculate the effect.

Free university is affordable, Britain could afford it without trouble when the Thatcherite aim was 100% in college. It's affordable because the total benefit vibrates through the web and raises the profitability of many and not just the one.

This hasn't been the experience in America, to the same degree, because humanities were at the expense of STEM (neoclassical education requires university involve both sides, so there are no pure liberal arts graduates - that's why it worked in Britain for so long), because education at school has too high a religious content (so the first year is catch-up) and because there's a fundamental mistrust of higher learning. Egg-heads are looked down upon. Tales of success are dominated by drop-outs. Inventors are sneered upon, whereas patent trolls are held in high regard.

If you want a functional, profitable web, that's how not to go about it.

Re:Good

[cfalcon]

> And in the end, that's all that matters, isn't it?

Power and money are somewhat translatable to the other, but ultimately power is power.

My core problem with this Sanders bill is that it makes it unprofitable to hire poor people.
Ex: Single woman is willing to work for X. Unwed mother is willing to work for X, and makes up the difference with WIC. Right now, you hire who you think is best. With this bill in place, you are heavily motivated to pick the first woman, because she costs you X, and the second woman costs X+W, where W is the cost of the WIC. The more children, the more the company pays. The poorer the person, the more the company pays. It strongly disadvantages poor people when they go to compete economically.

Re:Good

[Dragonslicer]

This is a ploy to extract donations from his base for his next reelection run. And that's all it is.

What would be the point? Sanders is the most popular senator in the country. There's pretty much zero chance that he will lose a reelection, no matter how much or little money he raises.

Re:Good

[Anne Thwacks]

As a true /.ian, I have not read TFA, but my understanding is that people (generically) are being paid piddling wages by a bunch of filthy rich scum. Amazon is a (good) example, but hardly the only ones. This is similar to slavery - which did not always involve grotesque amounts of violence.

How to address this is not a new problem. It was a major talking point throughout the 18th and 19th century in the UK. It is hard to improve the lot of the poor without ending up creating more poor, etc.

Several people have in the past, and I myself have promoted the concept that, where a company pays so little that any one of its employees are on benefits, it should be illegal to pay dividends to the shareholders. As things stand (at least here in the UK) we have a situation where companies who behave well, and employees whose situation is OK, are (heavily) taxed to fund their unscrupulous competitors. As a fat capitalist (waistline to prove it), I strongly disapprove of this situation. This should be dealt with by the legislation which also deals with the kind of asset stripper who buys a company, pays his cronies huge sums, and bankrupts the company owing millions to the supply chain (laws exist, but are not enforced). This is called trading illegally, but unfortunately does not appear to result in long jail terms, unlike other forms of armed robbery and "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception".

The proposal described above is a different solution to (effectively) the same problem, and unless you are the greediest type scum, it is hard to find a case against something of this type being done. Even if you are filthy rich sum, you might want to do something, as the alternative could involve the loss of your own life.

To know what will happen if nothing is done, you might want to Google "the French Revolution" - however, organisations such as ISIS and Boko Haram, and, indeed Trump voters, will give you a basic idea of the consequences of serious abuse of large numbers of poor people.

Re:Good

[Archangel Michael]

Taxes, all of them, are regressive. Why does Bernie assume that the government is entitled to what Amazon produces?

Re:Good

[Monster_user]

I think this is one of the most well written comments on the subject at hand.

My question is, why is it ludicrous? The religion of capitalism? We can't have any other outlook or understanding of how an economy should be structured? Of how labor and resources should be managed and distributed?

We are a team, every member of the economy, from the engineer's overseeing Nuclear power plants or deforestation/replanting, to the burger flippers and non-skilled labor, are here to build a utopia for all Americans. It is a team. We're working together. Every job contributes something, something which might be undervalued by the economics of the situation.

The question is not whether the Walmart or Amazon jobs should provide for a single parent. Because that may not be the purpose of those jobs, indeed such jobs may be charity or generosity. The question is whether or not the American people should put forth effort to include a single parent's needs when producing resources and goods. (There is an old parable about a man feeding 5,000 people, starting with a few loaves and a few fish, and ended up with 12 baskets left over. The moral is that we produce more than we need, and there is plenty to go around.)

The question is how bad might things get, how thin our resources might get spread, if we didn't discourage irresponsible reproduction? As such, how can we fairly discourage irresponsible reproduction? Is the "capitalist" system of economics ethical or moral? Or is it cold, uncaring, and heartless?

Re:Good

[admin7087]

He's 77 years, even older than Trump! As much as I like him, I don't think it would be wise for him or his party if he tries again. Wouldn't it be time for the next generation of old farts to make history?

Re:Good

[Dragonslicer]

That's not a straw man argument.

Yes, it is. It sets up an easily-attacked target that was not part of the original statement, and in fact barely even exists. The AC's response makes the unsupported assumption that everyone receiving public assistance is only in that situation because they chose to have at least 6 children. That creates a target that is easy to attack, instead of arguing based on actual data.

Re:Good

[omnichad]

But the liberal agenda has caused businesses to respond this way

Citation needed. Sounds like it's just businesses being businesses - chasing the bottom-line to whatever shady back-alley it leads to. Cutting the number of employees by 1/4 and raising everyone to full time that wants it costs nothing, unless you've promised benefits to the latter group and not the former group. And the only reason you promise benefits for the latter group is because the former group will be lead to believe they have a chance at that when they really never will. Completely underhanded, but somehow this is caused by a liberal agenda?

Re:Good

[mysidia]

Nice straw man. Look at both Amazon and Wal-Mart employees. You'll see single mothers with one, maybe two children who need benefits to survive.

Nice with your moving the goalposts. The proposition doesn't have anything to do with single mothers -- it is suggesting taxing all federal subsidies made to employees. Look at both Amazon and Wal-Mart employees.... you'll see some single Fathers with 4+ children.

The point is The employer is not responsible for the family situation.
Minimally skilled jobs are for supporting 1 person at most.
It is not Walmart's responsibility that you have 1 child or 2 children you had without first ensuring you attained securely the means to support them ---- should Walmart pay if you purchased a dog or cat also, that you can't afford basic food and care for without SNAP benefits?
No...... Walmart should pay the difference required to support a single individual if the pay is so low that the single full-time worker would be below the poverty line.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

The research shows that at most only around 500,000 [https://my.vanderbilt.edu/carolynheinrich/files/2016/06/DHH_Effects-ACA-on-Part-time-employment-6-9-16.pdf] jobs were effected mostly in service and retail in very small businesses. Some studies put the number much lower. Thats less than 1% of the estimated 150 million jobs [https://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/us/] in the economy. The hype of this was way overblown compared to what actually happened. Even Pappa John's raised their pizzas .25 cents and moved on...

Re:Good

[omnichad]

Nice with your moving the goalposts.

Moving them in the other direction than one would normally complain about. To an easier to solve problem that still exists rather than looking at the extreme outliers.

So you're a married family with a single income from the spouse, and the spouse leaves. Gets away with never paying a dime (extremely common). You're supposed to un-have the children or somehow be skilled enough for a higher-level job? And the responsibility is only on the parent and not society? The children are not just vassals of the family - they are people too. It's a lot easier to help the children through the parent, though. You're saying that once a child exists, they have to suffer the fate of whatever happens to their parents. And that the value of your 40 hours a week is not tied to your human worth, but by whatever a company's bottom-line is. Not really a world I want to live in.

Re:Good

[guruevi]

The thing is, this will affect small business a lot more. Amazon can afford a little bit of extra tax. Pretty much everyone that works for less than 150% of the minimum wage is included in this bracket, that's about 50% of the labor force.

Re:Good

[Stolovaya]

If he picks a good running mate, I would be less worried.

Re:Good

[oh_my_080980980]

It helps to rig a primary...

Re:Good

[ahodgson]

The ACA (Obamacare) mandates employer-provided health care to all full time employees. FTE defined as anyone who works an average 30 hours or more weekly over a year. It was widely predicted this would lead to an explosion of sub-30-hour weekly jobs, and it did.

Re:Good

[jeff4747]

There's very, very few "sympathetic employers" with more than 500 workers. I suspect the number is zero.

Re:Good

[omnichad]

In the case of Wal-Mart, they already had this situation many years before the ACA mandate. They already offered that level of coverage to full-time employees and kept nearly everyone part time.

Since healthcare is part of a living wage, I don't see why it should be so easy to get out of. Shifting jobs into part time should not have even been left open as a loophole - and it would have been easy to track. The ACA mandate only applies to employers with 50+ employees. This loophole does nothing but offer a complete exemption for every employer. Anyone with 50+ employees can afford this or the per-employee fine.

Re:Good

[apoc.famine]

You seem to think that there's a surplus of employee #1 out there. There is not. Unemployment is really low, but jobs aren't paying a living wage to a lot of people right now.

The situation as it stands is that there is only employee #2 available. Companies can either suck it up and pay X to the employee and W to the government, or they can raise the wage to (X+W).

Who knows which is going to be more palatable for companies. Raising wages may get you better employees, but holding onto W until tax time might be financially more beneficial. There's always the gamble that the current legislators might change the tax law, and you can always hope that your tax lawyers can find a loophole to allow you to keep some of that cash.

Re:Good

[Dorianny]

Every state has child-support laws

Re:Good

[Dorianny]

A shrinking workforce is extremely bad for the country. You need workers to cover benefits for retirees and public debt. Just look at Japan and its stagnant economy, what they call the "lost decades". The replacement rate is 2.1. In the U.S it is at 1.8 , if it weren't for immigration we would be shrinking just like Japan. In the U.S each taxpayer already owes 150,000 in public debt

Re:Good

[magzteel]

From that article: "I applied for the job through the jobcentre. I’ve thought about quitting, but I can’t leave of my own accord. If I did, I’d be sanctioned by the jobcentre and lose my entitlement for benefits and support for six months. I don’t have much choice but to carry on working there. Unless I can find a new job, I’m locked into place."

He's not on welfare because he works at Amazon. He's working at Amazon so he can stay on welfare!

Re:Good

[liquid_schwartz]

And they are a scam in every case. Free money for the mom, children still often go without. Until this money has accountability don't expect good outcomes.

Re:Good

[omnichad]

indeed such jobs may be charity or generosity

No. Not if they need the labor. There are no mental gymnastics to credibly say that trading money for work is a pretend job.

Re:Good

[Dorianny]

The scam is the father being required to do nothing more for their children then sending a check every month. Put a rubber on it if you don't want them

Re:Good

[liquid_schwartz]

The scam is the father being required to do nothing more for their children then sending a check every month. Put a rubber on it if you don't want them

The scam is the father not having equal time and just being expected to write checks and be blamed by people like yourself for not being involved. If you're not offered equal time it seems unfair to criticize fathers for not spending equal time. For many fathers it's not a question of not wanting them.

Re:Good

[Dorianny]

every state has visitation rights. you can, and you should be evolved

Re:Good

[_Sharp'r_]

Exactly. This law just leads to large companies no longer hiring the people who need basic low-end jobs the most, the poor who get welfare benefits. Instead of two $15-16/hour workers, they'll hire one $2-30/hour worker and a machine to help them do their job. Right now having more lower paid workers is more cost effective, but this law would shift that balance and put them out of work instead. And then Bernie will blame "the corporations" for the expected results of the policies he proposed.

As a result, if you get welfare, you'll basically only be able to get a job at a company with less than 500 workers, because they'll have to pay you way less than a large company would, similar to the situation in France which (economically inefficiently, costing everyone wealth and standard of living) has way more small businesses than the U.S. does, almost all right at the 50 employee limit where their super employee bureaucracy kicks in.

Fortunately, this proposed law is merely a political stunt and has zero chance of passing in the near future.

Re:Good

[Cyberax]

So they are going to hire less-poor people, paying more salary as a result. This is bad exactly how?

Re:Good

[vlad30]

Exactly this when you mandate an employer have a certain minimum of anything they will drop all the employees that cause the bottom line to ballon out. In Australia the then Left wing government thought making shifts a minimum 4 hours sounds like a great idea however in the afternoon when a lot of teens had work between 3 and 5 :30 and parents who only worked a few hours around childcare needs earlier in that shift meant both lost their part-time work lets just say the idea was turned into a "guideline" eventually

Re:Good

[vlad30]

Oh and when you make a minimum wage companies that can will move the operation to a place where that minimum is less. See manufacturing as the example.

Re:Good

[Cederic]

How fucking naive are you?

Women don't just fight against visitation rights (because it's inconvenient to them) they weaponise them to extort more money from the fathers.

That's before we look at the number of women that lie about domestic abuse in order to get larger settlements or fuck over the man they're separating from. While I can understand the courts needing to assure the children are protected the current systems are horrifically biased, broken and damaging children.

Fuck visitation rights, why isn't the default basic situation that neither parent pays the other and both get to share custody equally, 50% each. Because I know a lot of men that would love that much more time with their children, and to be able to spend their money on their child, not the vicious lying bitch they were unfortunate enough to once think might be a good mother for it.

Re:Good

[Cederic]

if you want to maximize profits for your shareholders (and you are required by law to do that)

No, you are not. Stop repeating this inane nonsense.

Re: Good

[Uberbah]

Corporations don't pay taxes. They shift the cost to their customers via higher prices

No, they don't. Prices are set to maximize revenue, and taxes on profit have nothing to do with that calculation. If a company could raise prices on its products willy nilly without driving away more customers than they make up with increased prices, they wouldn't wait for a tax increase to do so.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

Health insurance isn't welfare.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

If a business can't pay a living wage, that business doesn't deserve to exist. Besides, a higher minimum wage means more people with more money to spend at small businesses.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

Taxes, all of them, are regressive.

Uh, no. See income taxes.

Why does Bernie assume that the government is entitled to what Amazon produces?

Why are you eager to pay more taxes so Amazon is worth a trillion dollars, instead of a mere 900 billion?

Re:Good

[kaybee]

Amazon doesn't pay a lot of Federal taxes because they don't make a lot of profit. But they DO pay taxes, contrary to your statement. They paid $769 million in 2017, on profits of $4.1 billion. In 2016 they paid $1.4 billion in taxes on profits of $4.2 billion.

Re:Good

[JackieBrown]

Every job should not be required to pay for a family of 2.

Re:Good

[CaptainDork]

This.

The ultimate fan is the greenback.

That's the business model Nike is adopting.

The divide between worker and company is stark at the NFL.

It's White ownership vs Black players.

White team owners wear wingtips and suits and are not in Nike's demographic.

Re:Good

[magzteel]

Health insurance isn't welfare.

Call it what you will, by his own words he is clearly on public assistance which has a work requirement.

This article is about people who are on assistance because they work at Amazon.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

Instead of two $15-16/hour workers, they'll hire one $2-30/hour worker and a machine to help them do their job.

If the machine can do the job for less than they can pay a human, sure - but mostly this is apologia for corporate greed and resulting poverty wages. Amazon would love to build robots that could replace these human workers if they could - but they can't. And when those robots are a reality, Amazon will quickly mass produce them, and it wont matter if their workers are paid $12.50 or $1.25 an hour, they're getting a pink slip.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

Nice with your moving the goalposts.

Debunking the racist 'welfare queen' trope isn't moving the goalposts.

The point is The employer is not responsible for the family situation.

One you can make without being a eugenicist.

Re:Good

[redlemming]

When you systematically give 30 hours per week to a larger number of part time employees just to avoid having full time employees, you really should be responsible for the fallout. There are very few of these employees that don't want full-time hours. Instead, Wal-Mart can claim that 100% of full-time employees get all these great benefits and they're a great place to work - all while only having a handful of full-time employees.

It seems like there are several better solutions to this problem.

One is to come up with a cost of full time benefits for each geographic area. Employers pay a percentage of that cost to a fund like a 401k, according to hours worked each week (with some defined total being considered "full time"). The money in the fund can only be used for health insurance or health care until retirement, and otherwise accumulates towards retirement.

This forces all business to compete equally, nobody can play games with part-time status and get any advantage. Workers that are part time at one business can take a second job to get the equivalent of full time status.

It has the disadvantage that insurance companies will play games with the rates to maximize their profits - which in turn creates all sorts of complications when the government tries to control this.

Yet another solution would be some sensible form of UBI (reverse income tax), supplemented by either a Swiss or single-payer model for health care. Reforming the tax code would probably be sufficient to pay for this - a lot of loopholes hide in the complexity of the current code, most of which benefit the rich at the expense of everybody else.

Re:Good

[RyoShin]

My core problem with this Sanders bill is that it makes it unprofitable to hire poor people.

Is that not the same as saying poverty should be maintained in order to create profitability?

Re:Good

[guruevi]

Not really, labor in my small business is ~50% of the total cost of doing business.

Let's say I make something and it costs me $100 to make and I want a healthy 20% profit ($120 for the item cost); $50 goes to my workers, $50 to my suppliers. Maybe my employees can afford $120 because they make $10/h and have to work 12 hours to get my widget.

Now if I have to pay my labor 50% more (the minimum income goes from $10 to $15), I now have to raise prices by that difference - my supplier cost went up because he has to pay more, my cost went up because the same thing happens, now my item costs $150 to "make" and I sell it for $180. My item just cost $80 more, my workers now still have to work 12 hours to get my widget.

But that's not how economies work, if I sell something today for $120 and tomorrow raise the price to $180, my customers aren't happy. I now have to take a cut off the profits (perhaps 10%) so my widget goes from $120 to $165. Sure, my workers are happy because they only have to work 11 hours now to get my widget but I just took $15 out of my own pocket to stop the bleeding. If I sell 8 widgets per day, that's equal to 1 worker, I fire the worker to recoup my losses, I now make everyone else work harder and one of my workers can't pay for the widget because he makes $0.

Re:Good

[guruevi]

I forgot to mention: increases in minimum wage typically doesn't scale across the entire population, so my widget HAS to cost $165 for my customers to afford it because even though minimum wage went up 50%, their wages only go up 2-3%. Across the board, minimum wages go up 3% per year (even though they jump you ameliorate it over the years), average wages go up 2-2.4% or less during a downturn. Now what's been happening due to the tax cuts is that people with minimum wage jobs are predicted to be experiencing an uptick of 4-5% per year for this and future years.

Re:Good

[_Sharp'r_]

A single machine-assisted human is currently more expensive than two cheap humans, but the economics of that can obviously change.

Machines-only is much less likely than less work done by humans and more of it done by machines in collaboration with humans. It's usually easier to leave a human to do the smaller parts which can't be automated yet than to automate the entire process.

Re:Good

[Uberbah]

Tomato, tamahtoe. Either way, he's paid so little by Amazon and gets benefits so shitty he qualifies for assistance.

Re:Good

[cfalcon]

In my example, they end up hiring the less-poor person while playing the same salary. The more-poor person now comes at a higher price tag, and has *yet another* economic barrier placed in his path, this time by the government. Even if the poorer person is willing to work just as hard, he costs more through no fault of his own, and is even more likely to be unable to find work.

Re:Good

[cfalcon]

> Is that not the same as saying poverty should be maintained in order to create profitability?

Of course not

If you have two workers, one in poverty and one not in poverty, and both will work equally well, you'll be equally likely to choose either. Apply this policy, and you are now being paid by the government to avoid hiring the one in poverty, as they now cost you more for the same labor. It's a barricade to the poor.

breaking news

[Thud457]

Old Man Yells at Cloud!

Re:breaking news

[jfdavis668]

News at 11

Re:breaking news

[fibonacci8]

That's so old fashioned. This week it's "Old Man Yells at Blockchain".

Not just Bezos

[Miser]

They should do this to Wal-Mart also, unless the information I have regarding their employees not being paid enough and therefore having to take government benefits to get by is inaccurate. Don't just single out Amazon. Do it across the board.

Re:Not just Bezos

[olsmeister]

yeah, but it'll never get through Congress (at least the current Congress). Although, if the Democrats can flip both the House and Senate, it would be interesting to see what Trump would do if this landed on his desk. He might sign it just to piss off Jeff Bezos.

Re:Not just Bezos

[BenFranske]

Actually this is a pretty interesting idea that could potentially garner bipartisan support (though the fact that politicians on both sides are in the pocket of big business will likely kill it). My rationale is that Republicans like to claim that there are all these 'slackers' collecting welfare benefits who should be working. In this case these are 'working poor' people though who are trying to earn a living but the jobs they have simply cannot cover the costs of living. If Republicans truly want to encourage people to work they need to ensure that everyone can get a job which will cover their costs of living. This would seems to do that without any Government expense at all (also very appealing to Republicans, many of whom are not particularly against government services but are fiscally conservative and don't want the government spending --or collecting-- money). Of course Democrats would support this as providing a social safety net for people trying to work for a living but who need a little extra help making it -- and they can claim a win in doing it without raising individual taxes. This is probably the sort of thing that the majority of Americans would support. Don't worry though, the big business lobby will kill it.

Re:Not just Bezos

[Dare nMc]

> They should do this to Wal-Mart also

It is already illegal for congress to pass a tax to target a specific company, it is an across the board proposal.

>having to take government benefits to get by

Also, just as a FYI, a single person with a full time job making minimum wage is NOT eligible for SNAP. What can make this tough on a employer is if they hire a women with 8 dependents, and no other income or savings, with a $50k/year job she is eligible for SNAP, while if no kids it is $14k/year.

This bill would also give incentive to a company to not provide family friendly benefits (like daycare, flexible hours, etc.) so that they hire and keep fewer employees with kids.

Re:Not just Bezos

[JackieBrown]

The Democrats won't do this. Well they might now that Trump is president since they will have deniability when it fails.

Re:Not just Bezos

[Dragonslicer]

They should do this to Wal-Mart also, unless the information I have regarding their employees not being paid enough and therefore having to take government benefits to get by is inaccurate. Don't just single out Amazon. Do it across the board.

Despite the "clever" name, the proposed bill would apply to any company of sufficient size, not just Amazon (as mentioned, a law targeting a specific person or company is unconstitutional).

Re:Not just Bezos

[guruevi]

Even if they can flip the presidency somehow, no sane person would ever vote for this bill. It is basically a communist manifesto. A tax on all business that employ the majority of the US workforce? The other thing that could happen is that if this bill exists, is that welfare would be gutted to ~20-30% of the minimum wage (currently you can get said benefits if you make up to 150% of the minimum wage)

Re:Not just Bezos

[viperidaenz]

Did you not read far enough into the summary to see that it would apply to all companies with 500 or more staff?

Don't we have a free market system?

[Lucas123]

If you don't think you're being paid enough, find another job. I don't like this idea that the government is going to get into the business of micromanaging how much companies pay their employees. A minimum wage is one standard for all, but to begin taxing companies as a way of penalizing them for not paying their employees enough: hello socialism.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[DigiShaman]

Two axiomatic problems with Socialism

1. Those in power that advocate socialism never live by he very rules they set for everyone else.

2. Eventually you run out of other people's money.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[rolandog]

I think the spirit of the proposed bill is "Don't make the rest of the US pay for your penny-pinching bad practices". Which I'm totally in favor of.

Re: Don't we have a free market system?

[edris90]

The same applies to capitalism, it's just masked through a premise of false entitlement.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[mark-t]

If you don't think you're being paid enough, find another job.

Looking for another job takes time that is often better spent earning whatever you can *actually* make, because even not making enough is better than not making anything until you are lucky enough to find something else that does pay what you want... a journey that one has no real way to control how long it will take, or even if they will necessarily reach their destination.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[dunkelfalke]

Oh, that can be applied in so many ways.
Like, for example, "don't like this kind of laws, find another country".

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, hello!!

We've already reached socialism. Huge companies like Amazon and Walmart don't pay their employees enough to live on, so they MUST go on public assistance, which is... (*GASP*) government assistance! Which YOU and I pay for through our own taxes. It makes much better economical sense to tax these corporations to recoup the costs to the taxpayer. This won't bankrupt these companies. It just means that Bezos will only have access to nine diamond-encrusted, golden butt-scratchers a week instead of the usual ten.

My heart truly bleeds for him.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[PrimaryConsult]

That's how I read it as well. Heck I lean right but this is a nice targeted tax that will actually stop the "race to the bottom". Very few companies would be affected, and those that do are currently undercutting more responsible employers.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[scourfish]

I've searched for other jobs while working full time + overtime. My friends and family have searched for jobs wile working full time + overtime. Prospective employers will accommodate for a strange schedule if you are a desirable enough employee.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[XXongo]

If you don't think you're being paid enough, find another job.

And if there were well-paying jobs just lying around to be "found", that would be easy.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Anonymous Coward]

taxing companies as a way of penalizing them for not paying their employees enough: hello socialism.
We HAVE socialism in the United States, AND it's supported by taxes on employers. We call it Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The last one even has the word SOCIAL in it!

I noticed this years ago when I had a housemate that had a part time job at Banana Republic, but yet she qualified for SNAP. I found it disgusting that essentially the government was subsidizing mega-rich corporations because they paid so poorly. It's about time someone actually tried to do something about it.

You can cry and cry about that big bad word "socialism" all you want, but to the vast majority of us, this is just desert for the massive benefits we already give to mega-corp. It seems entirely fair that the government should tax companies that pay so little they literally can't afford to feed themselves.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[taustin]

500 employees isn't "very few companies," it's a lot of medium sized businesses. And tens of millions of Americans are on SNAP.

But Sanders is irrelevant, and will remain so even if the Democrats manage to regain control of both houses of Congress, so it's not really a concern.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[fred6666]

The problem here is that people accept these jobs in part because they know they can rely on the government to compensate.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Ichijo]

Ok now what should we do about our socialized roads?

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[taustin]

Amazon employs over half a million people. If you give each and every one of them a $1.00/hour raise, that's a billion dollars a year.

(Not to mention over half of all Americans own some sort of stock, generally in a retirement fund, so the "rich people" you fuck are, in fact, the workers you are trying to help.)

The problem is a lot more complicated than "fuck rich people" can solve.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[mark-t]

It has less to do with whether or not you are actually desirable and more to do with how much other people *believe* you are desirable.

And what other people believe is not directly under your control... at best you might be able to influence it, but only if you actually know what a particular person needs to see or hear in order to come to that kind of conclusion

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[eth1]

If you don't think you're being paid enough, find another job. I don't like this idea that the government is going to get into the business of micromanaging how much companies pay their employees. A minimum wage is one standard for all, but to begin taxing companies as a way of penalizing them for not paying their employees enough: hello socialism.

The problem with "just find another job" at the rock bottom of the pay scale is that any other job they find is going to put them in the same boat. You have a whole class of people that are desperate, and basically have to take whatever bend-over-and-take it paycheck they can get.

One of the big benefits of UBI would be the elimination of this class of people, so that employers can't get away with this crap any more.

I don't like government meddling, either, but I also don't like supporting social safety net programs with my taxes so that big companies can use it as a subsidy.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Lucas123]

That's apples and oranges.

1. Obviously, it's vastly more difficult to leave a country than a job. In the U.S., we have a free market system, which means you can use your legs and pocket books to cast your vote for or agains a company.

2. You can change laws (i.e., government policies) through a number of channels: voting, protesting, lobbying, ballot initiatives, etc...

Happens all the time.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[null etc.]

Eventually you run out of other people's money.

Ha ha ha, that's so funny and I've never heard it before.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[JackieBrown]

Very few companies would be affected, and those that do are currently undercutting more responsible employers.

How much do you think most companies pay cashiers and stockers?

Have you ever worked one of these jobs? I have. There have been times in my life - especially when starting out - that I was very glad for low skill low paying jobs. There was small risk for the employer to hire me and it allowed me to build a resume.

Re: Don't we have a free market system?

[jd]

And when all employers you can work for set unlivable wages, who do you work for?

Your proposal is like sending telephone sanitisers into space on a B Ark. Sounds great on paper, dooms you to extinction because you have nobody left to do the jobs that actually were essential after all.

No. Government's job is to represent the people and serve the people. It is not to serve businesses, who are NOT people.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[bluefoxlucid]

Social Democracy uses tax-and-spend government to provide services to fill the gaps in capitalism (you can't make money providing disability insurance, healthcare, and housing to people who are poor and can't pay the cost of these things). The general free market stays around (although there are regulations), rather than being annihilated by socialist policies.

Productivity gains--wealth, as the amount of production and consumption possible per person--increase by structural change. If we can make 100% as much with 80% as much labor, guess what? We only need to employ 80% as many people. We only need to pay 80% as much to make the same things. The price can come down and we can still have even bigger profits because the same profit margin is more purchasing power.

So if you move a factory to another town, you stop bringing money into the town from all the places to which the factory sells products. The vehicle of factory worker wages vanishes; jobs beyond just factory jobs can no longer exist because the revenue from sales dries up; and you get mass unemployment and poverty.

Because people are poor in your area and you've lost a cash inflow source, you can't just start a business selling to your neighbors, or have jobs selling expensive things--it doesn't work. Your first jobs are service jobs; and those are supported by welfare. People get jobs at grocery stores and WalMarts, and then their welfare gets cut off. The cash flow reverses: welfare supports jobs; cutting welfare means part of the spend from your neighbors goes to your wage and part leaves out the supply chain. Unemployment again increases.

Your collapsed city goes into poverty stasis.

Now as you can imagine, a city of workers is producing more than a city of non-workers. We can't pay them, they can't work. If they worked, they would produce, and our nation would have wealth.

So in 2016 (before this new tax law), it was possible to restructure our social insurances such that we didn't cut any services and we built Social Security on a new, firm foundation--without raising taxes or increasing deficits. The model I used restructured $1.1 trillion of Federal spending into $2.0 trillion, paying a benefit equally to all adults; $1.2 trillion of those benefits payments covered the taxes the recipients would pay into the system.

In case you missed that: total money moving in and out went up by $0.9 trillion; and $1.2 trillion of the tax taken was being placed directly back into the same hands from which it was taken. That means it's a $300 billion tax cut.

Cute, right? Mathematical paradoxes have their limits.

So how is this useful?

$6,000 per adult per year. The poorest get the biggest benefit; it tapers off among the middle-class: their total tax rate is a touch higher to reclaim the benefit. Basically, they make $60,000, they get $6,000, but they pay a little more in taxes--between $0 and $6,000 more--which ultimately transfers some of that money from the new Dividend program to the General fund through tax games.

That's done to make the program a hands-off, self-stabilizing program--one the government doesn't need to "rescue", one that doesn't need to be "made stronger" with higher taxes and benefits, one that doesn't need "reform". It's set, it has strict rules, and the tax rate attached never changes. Don't touch it.

Where you have concentrated poverty, you have concentrated stimulus. People are a little less poor, so they don't qualify for as much welfare; and when they get jobs and lose welfare, they retain this basis to help lift their local economy steadily toward middle-class anyway. They don't collapse back into poverty again.

People working. People producing. People paying taxes. A small share of that distributes, so the benefit is bigger--it grows faster than inflation because it grows with productivity.

Lower unemployment and a quick fix wherever there is any seed of recession remediates recession

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[null etc.]

Ok now what should we do about our socialized roads?

Screw that, we should get rid of gasp ALL government. No taxes, no socialized services, just me and my gun and my farm, thank you.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[JackieBrown]

So have I too. So have most people that have worked in low skilled jobs.

I think a lot of people posting here (and Bernie) never have actually been in this situation and don't realize the negative effect it would have against people they think they are trying to help.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[JackieBrown]

You think police, fire departments, and military equal socialism? I guess Congress also equals it too

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[fahrbot-bot]

Prospective employers will accommodate for a strange schedule if you are a desirable enough employee.

Which, of course, is the problem with being a low-skilled employee at companies like Amazon and Walmart -- you're just not that special and/or desirable, you're just an easily replaceable cog in a machine. In addition, the companies have zero incentive for you (or to help you) become more desirable. And, if you're scraping by on 32 hours a week of part-time, minimum-wage pay, it's hard to better yourself and/or your situation.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[poptix]

Precisely this.

I can't tell you how many people I overhear deriding "the greedy stock holders" until I ask them where they think their 401K makes its money.

After that they start yelling about 'but the CEO of Wal-Mart makes $22 million a year! They should give all the employees a pay raise!!!'

Then I point out that 22 million dollars divided by 2.3 million employees is $9.56

Per year.

We really need to improve math and economics education in our school systems.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[scourfish]

If a few hiring managers doesn't "don't believe" that you are a good fit, it's them. If no hiring managers for any job apply to believe that you are a good fit, then it's something you have to fix, whether it's building up a better work history, seek counseling for behavior and confidence issues, or learning new skills.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[fahrbot-bot]

Amazon employs over half a million people. If you give each and every one of them a $1.00/hour raise, that's a billion dollars a year.

On the other hand, as a company now worth (or, rather, "valued at") a trillion dollars, Amazon could afford that. And it wouldn't even have to be *all* their employees, as the non part-time, minimum-wage wage employees -- corporate, programmers, etc... -- already make a competitive wage (or so I imagine).

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[poptix]

FInd a roommate, stop going to the bar every night, slap a case on your phone so it lasts a few years, learn how to cook decent meals at home from scratch (amazing what you can do cost effectively with a sack of rice and a sack of beans).

Work your job at Wal-Mart, Starbucks, McDonalds, Chick-Fil-A, Krogers (etc, there are many) use their tuition reimbursement program to get an education, then find a job you're actually interested in that pays decently and has advancement opportunities.

The problem is that most people don't want to put in the effort and they live beyond their means. Ultimately they're just screwing themselves later in life.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Archangel Michael]

The socialism roads that need Dominoes Pizza offering to repair them because socialism can't be bothered fixing the socialistic roads? That socialism?

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[DarthVain]

Disagree on so many levels. Also Walmart is/was the worst for this well before Amazon even existed.

Socialism is the social fabric (i.e. the tax payer) supporting those that can't support themselves (i.e. the fact that you work at Walmart/Amazon yet because you are paid so little you qualify for very basic social programs).

Basically you are supporting socialism by saying that Walmart and Amazon and others shouldn't pay their fair share nor their employees fairly. In essence the tax payer will be augmenting the wages payed by Amazon/Walmart because they don't have to. The tax payer is essentially unintentionally subsidizing the Amazon/Walmart workforce.

By applying a tax, you are forcing the corporate world to pay a living wage so that people do not need the socialism. I expect if you (or Walmart/Amazon) calculate how much those social programs cost (to which you will be changed a tax) VS how much more it would cost to simply pay your workforce enough that they wouldn't qualify for those programs, I'd bet a large amount of money that the later is much less than the former (i.e. the cost to have government run those programs to subsidize your underpaid workforce is likely a lot less efficient than simply paying them better wages).

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Dragonslicer]

500 employees isn't "very few companies," it's a lot of medium sized businesses. And tens of millions of Americans are on SNAP.

And avoiding the tax would be easy, just pay your employees a living wage. A 600-person company full of engineers wouldn't pay anything.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Lab Rat Jason]

If you don't think you're being paid enough, find another job.

I appreciate the sentiment, and I wish it were possible, but that doesn't work. The person you are speaking about has plenty of options for jobs, but they all pay the same low wages. I've heard it dozens of times when I was in High School: people claiming "I don't need to know this shit... I'm never going to use it." That sort of talk is a self fulfilling prophecy. Once these people enter the workplace, they're so unskilled, that nobody but Wal-Mart will hire them. The problem doesn't end there, because those same people, once they realize they're ill-equipped to survive in the workforce won't work (on their own time) to try to elevate themselves. As a nation, we need to dispel the myth that making a living isn't hard work, and we need to attack that myth early, in middle school and high school. I work my ass off, and have a blast doing it, because I learned to love working, and I picked work that I love to do. I also learned to learn, and I keep my skills sharp, which keeps me moving up. Kids need to be taught that they don't need to go out and get a job, they need to go out and create their job. Entrepreneurship should be a required class from middle school through college... that's the thing that we should be pounding into kids' heads these days. At least that's what I wish had been taught in my schools. Once that is a reality, then you can modify your advice to read "If you don't think you're being paid enough, go out and start your own business."

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Dan667]

socialism for everything yes, but the current healthcare system shows that capitalism also does not work for everything. How much are you willing to pay to live? And in this case amazon and walmart are intentionally shorting people hours so they cannot get benefits and other things full time employees get. The bezo act is a good way to cut to why they are doing that and make it unattractive.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Anne Thwacks]

The problem is basically what the attitude "fuck poor people" can cause.

FTFY

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[Anne Thwacks]

The problem here is that people accept these jobs in part because they know they can rely on the government to compensate because it is better than starving to death, or having poor people start a revolution.

FTFY

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[taustin]

What it's "worth" and how much profits it makes are, these days, only vaguely related to each other.

Amazon's profits was $2 billion for the second quarter of this year, a record level for them. That's $2.00/hour for each employee, while fucking the shareholders - many of whom are hoping their 401k will not completely disappear before they can retire at age 95 - out of any profits whatsoever.

I repeat: "The problem is a lot more complicated than "fuck rich people" can solve."

Yeah, that'll really make the world a better place.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[taustin]

Is failing at 4th grade math a requirement to be a liberal these days?

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[dunkelfalke]

1) You can just as well use your legs and pocket books to cast your vote for or against a country. In the US you have the freedom to leave the country and go almost anywhere else, so stop making excuses.

2) You can move to other countries through a number of channels, sometimes literally - sea, air, train, walking, driving etc. Sometimes you don't even have to move anywhere to suddenly be in a different country altogether.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[taustin]

If Amazon devoted all of their record profits from the 2nd quarter of this year to employee raises (for over half a million people), it would amount to about $30/week for each one. That is not the difference between what they make now and a living wage. (Not to mention pissing off shareholders - many of whom are middle class people hoping their 401k won't be toilet paper when they retire).

The problem is a lot more complicated than "fuck rich people" can solve. No matter how emotionally satisfying chanting "fuck rich people" might be on your break from flipping burgers at McDonald's.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[daveglass68]

The point is, Amazon, Walmart or any other company with massive number of employees is gaming the system. You are right, eventually we will run out of money, the WE being the middle class. Any business that has a certain percentage of revenues drawn from tax based welfare, employees or not, is in essence drawing money from taxpayers. I'm all for helping out the poor, especially those that are working and making an effort, but the middle class has been disproportionately paying for it. Not only are we primarily paying for the welfare but also increasing these huge corporations bottom line. I would like to see any company that takes in a certain percentage of SNAP or other welfare based programs be subjected to a baseline minimum living wage that is higher than normal federal minimum wage (federal minimum wage currently is pathetic considering the amount of wealth in this country IMO), knocking them out of welfare state. That way the burden is shared and lessens the load on middle class since they are taking a percentage of my taxes for NON-PUBLIC use. Big, rich companies will always find a way to game system but if no one points out the lack of fairness, they will never change. I am speculating Bernie is simply trying to find an alternate way to market a higher minimum living wage at federal level. If they could find another job it will more than likely be the same scenario and they will still be taking our tax dollars. Flat/Fair tax would be a great start to help avoid large corporations from gaming system IMO as well, but that's another topic...

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[_Sharp'r_]

The obvious solution is to give/sell them to the people who use them and have guests who use them. Make ownership in the local road company part of the bundle of rights which normally transfer with property rights. Then the people who actually need/use the roads can determine how they want them managed and paid for.

Re:Don't we have a free market system?

[_Sharp'r_]

The current U.S. health care system is about as far removed from free market capitalism as you can get without going full communist. How does that show anything about capitalism, except what happens when you remove free market incentives and substitute the government incentivizing third-party payers, massive amounts of regulations on both providing health care and paying for it, subsidies, literal government takeover of 2/3 of the market (via medicare/medicaid/VA, etc...), plus putting the government and a union (AMA) in charge of restricting supply?

Amazon and Walmart pay more people to work less hours in direct response to the incentive structure the government created for them. The response to this law (if it ever passed) would be the same, hiring less more expensive workers and automation/machinery to do the work and no longer employing welfare recipients. That's going to suck for the welfare recipients when they can only get a job at companies with less than 500 employees, because it costs too much to employ them at a larger company.

Maybe Bernie can propose a law repealing the laws of gravity and perpetual motion next, so we can all have free energy and anti-gravity devices...

Re: Don't we have a free market system?

[jwymanm]

This right here. I can't believe how many comments on this article are anti Amazon. These people responded to an ad for a job with a set $ amount up front. They continue to work there. I don't care what Bezos gets paid, he started the frigging company. Pay him a trillion an hour. Why does everyone care what he gets paid?? This is just people grouping together hating on someone who made it. Making it big is the American dream. Not working some shitty factory job for someone who made it big. These people can live with others to save on costs like immigrants from India/poorer countries and save up money and start their own business or do their own stock investments. They can also work another part time job like I did when I was younger and make more than a full time low level management salary in total. I think the biggest issue here is that these Amazon jobs are typically in poorer areas where people are desperate for a job (thank you again property taxes for forcing warehouses to be built in the boonies) but since they are in the country they tend to live alone or with their parents. Nobody works together to save money anymore and I guarantee you they have the latest smartphone tech with equivalent monthly bill and go out drinking each weekend.

Re: Don't we have a free market system?

[edris90]

Capitalism insist that people play by the same rules button practice anybody with big enough land that nobody in official capacity can observe a crime or a trocity without invalidating the evidence by trespassing themselves means that there is no oversight on those who have large pieces of land.

they're all awful people

[Thud457]

But I don't get why Bernie would kick Bezos (owner of the Amazon Washington Post) for Trump.

Re:they're all awful people

[colonslash]

Bernie thinks Amazon is underpaying workers, and he's fighting for social justice - he's not doing this for Trump.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/...

> In one video, titled "Get Amazon Off of Corporate Welfare," he highlighted that CEO Jeff Bezos is the world's richest person and earns $260 million a day, while many of his workers are on food stamps.

Re:they're all awful people

[AvitarX]

He doesn't earn 260 million a day.

He has unrealized capital gains approaching that, but capital gains are generally considered unearned.

Re: they're all awful people

[jd]

He's bdoing this for social justice, not Trump.

Trump, however, is in an interesting position. Back Sanders and risk alienating voters, or back both one of his enemies and lower wages for his core supporters, risking alienating voters.

It's down to who he hates more right now.

Shouldn't apply to part-timers

[RightwingNutjob]

All the old-timers working a few hours a week as greeters or cashiers at Target and the like while collecting old-age benefits shouldn't count against the employer.

Re:Shouldn't apply to part-timers

[omnichad]

Doesn't look like that's included anyway. How many retired people working part time do you know that are on SNAP or WIC?

Re: Shouldn't apply to part-timers

[jd]

If society is so decrepit that OAPs have to work in hostile, abusive environments to buy food, then society doesn't get to complain when the environments are made less hostile and abusive.

The problem needs to be fixed. If you don't fix it, the worst possible people to get involved will. So next time fix things before they think it's a good idea. You get to choose your reaction times here.

Re:Shouldn't apply to part-timers

[JackieBrown]

They are stealing jobs from people that need it!

They are old and should stay home. Same for kids in high school or still living with their parents.

At least, that is the thought process of people supporting stuff like this who couldn't imagine anyone wanting to work a job like this.

Re: Shouldn't apply to part-timers

[MtnDeusExMachina]

Amazon pays more than Wal-Mart, so Wal-Mart will disappear first.

Better than most ideas

[EndlessNameless]

The problem with regular taxes is that they apply to everyone, regardless of how well they treat their employees and their clients. Normally, the good actors must pay to fix problems caused by the bad.

This targets companies specifically when their policies push employees toward poverty. With the death of unions, something needs to balance corporate power to ensure workers are treated fairly.

The law should waive the penalty when an employee has a spouse who is unable to work, however, as that contributes to poverty but is not the fault of the employer---and we don't want employers to have an incentive for discriminating against people whose partners are sick/disabled.

Re: Better than most ideas

[edris90]

Money is power and with power comes responsibility to help others. the more power or money the greater the responsibility towards others before yourself.

Re:Better than most ideas

[mark-t]

The law should waive the penalty when an employee has a spouse who is unable to work, however, as that contributes to poverty but is not the fault of the employer---and we don't want employers to have an incentive for discriminating against people whose partners are sick/disabled.

And instead, give them an incentive to discriminate against people who are single... nice.

Re:Better than most ideas

[EndlessNameless]

And instead, give them an incentive to discriminate against people who are single... nice.

I don't see where you're going with that. Note that I suggested an exception only when spouses are unable to work---this is a small subset of disabilities, as most can be accommodated in some fashion.

If a person is single and fully disabled (unable to work), that person is likely eligible for assistance already. On the other hand, if a person is single and employable, then that person should be paid a livable wage, which this law would require.

If you're arguing that this encourages employers to seek out married people with fully disabled spouses... well, it might. But there's not really a lot of people who can't work at all, so it can't realistically distort the labor market.

Re:Better than most ideas

[mark-t]

If the company isn't changing how much they pay people, and a single person still needs those government aids that the company now has to pay for, while a person with a spouse that doesn't work is exempted, then they are less likely to hire the single person.

Re:Better than most ideas

[Uberbah]

Still no connection between your premise and your conclusion.

Re:Better than most ideas

[mark-t]

Okay.... let's take it from the top: A person who doesn't make a living wage receives government benefits that the company would actually have to pay for, effectively raising the amount that this person costs the company. This effectively creates a disincentive against hiring people with dependents, who would receive more benefits than those without.

However, by the proposal mentioned above, however, a person with a spouse who cannot work gets an exemption, so that the company does not discriminate against people with a dependent spouse because they might have more benefits that the company would have to pay for. This would mean that the person with a dependent spouse does not cost the company as much money, creating an incentive to hire those people over those who are single.

Get what I'm saying now?

There's literally no way to win here with Sanders' proposal. if the government charges the company any extra money over their wage for an employee, then they create a disincentive against hiring that employee when the option exists for the company to pay someone the same wage while still being charged less for the benefits they receive because they happen to have dependents that would make them exempt from the subsidies requirements.

I think that the solution, of course, is to not tax them 100% as Sanders proposed, but to tax them on a scale depending upon how many dependents they have, so that even if an employee is receiving more benefits because of dependents, it does not cost the company any more money... This effectively raises the minimum wage for the company to some amount such that for a single person with no dependents, they would not receive any subsidies, effectively making minimum wage = living wage for a single person. The only sticking point left is that living wage, however, can vary considerably from city to city, even in areas which would otherwise share the same minimum wage, so companies in bigger cities with a higher living wage would have more taxes to pay per employee than they would in a smaller city, but at least it doesn't change how much the company has to pay each employee that they otherwise have the same wage for in a given city, so there is no basis for discrimination against employees with or without dependents.

Re:Better than most ideas

[ebvwfbw]

How about a tax on Bernie Sanders to equalize him to the level that he wants everyone to be at instead of his lavish rich lifestyle he's made off of capitalism while preaching for communism. His honeymoon was in Moscow. Who does that but a complete nut?

Taxes = bribes

[Quakeulf]

This won't work. As long as Bezos gets to operate, everything can be seen as a bribe. What needs to happen is to physically restrain him, preferably together with Sanders, in a confined area, below ground.

Amazon pays poorly?

[mark-t]

Seriously, this is news to me.. I heard they were among the highest paying companies in North America. Wasn't their high wages coupled with the sheer number of employees they had what drove up housing prices in Seattle?

Re: Amazon pays poorly?

[edris90]

That's the problem of averages you can have a small minority receiving huge amounts of money while the majority workers are receiving a pittance and when averaged will still appear as if they pay their employees more.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[mordred99]

This is for people in the warehouses, doing all the logistics and shipping work essentially. They make a little more than minimum wage. Yes you are correct that those that work in the corporate HQ make a ton of money, it is the line workers Bernie's bill is looking out for.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[tsstahl]

Amazon pays pretty well. However, there are a slew of other companies who work (some exclusively) for amazon that employ legions of replaceable drones--sorry--people. Some of those poorly paid masses have the temerity to procreate and desire to provide for their offspring, but need a little help from the gubmint to do so.

I would like to see the stats because my anecdotal belief is that the Walmarts and Targets of the world built, named, and live in the owner's suite on that boat.

Instead of a tax, maybe a higher minimum wage on employers of more than 500 people would be more appropriate. As long as we're going to mettle with economics, we might as well give the money to actual people who will invariably put the money back into circulation. Kind of a get the people off the program approach instead of paying the gubmint more to perpetuate it type of thing.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[tsstahl]

meddle. Dunno how I missed that on preview.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[mark-t]

Maybe the time has come for the US to create a maximum pay ratio law between lowest and highest paid people working for a company (including managers and executives), which might mitigate that.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[kaybee]

From Glassdoor.com:

Amazon Warehouse Worker Hourly Pay. The typical Amazon Warehouse Worker salary is $13. Warehouse Worker salaries at Amazon can range from $10 - $19.

Re:Amazon pays poorly?

[mordred99]

Per Executive Order 13658, minimum wage is set at $10.35. While that is not for every company, it is for anyone who does business with the US government.

Re: Amazon pays poorly?

[edris90]

A medion is a form of averaging.

Not for nothing, but....

[meglon]

first thing that came to mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

But how does this square with UBI?

[presidenteloco]

Universal Basic Income is thought by many to be a necessary response to increasing replacement of human work by automation and A.I.
We could easily see scenarios not too far out where 50% of "able" adults are no longer required by the automated economy, because automation and AI are more cost-effective and possibly just outright more effective/high-quality than their labor.

A feature of UBI (the Universal part) is that it is supposed to apply to people whether or not they are supplementing UBI with employment income.

Can we say that the Bernie tax is the first attempt to reclaim from profitable automated industry the funds needed to support UBI?

If so, I think the incentive alignment is wrong with this tax. This tax is making it more expensive to KEEP employees, and cheaper to automated more.
A UBI-supporting tax should instead be a tax on automation-driven productivity, and should be REDUCED when more human employees are retained.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[postbigbang]

Question on app:

Do you currently receive any of the following benefits:
SNAP, Section 8 Housing Assistance, Medicare......

If so, please deposit application in the recycling box on your way out.

I truly like the idea of raising the minimums, don't get me wrong. However, this will make a pariah out of those that need a job/gig the worst. It's my belief that another method needs to be devised to tax corporations at a higher rate, with fewer exemptions and international income exclusions-- and tax them the way out of the country when they move their assets to the Caymans, Panama, etc.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[postbigbang]

Paying taxes in other countries is a fine idea, so long as profits are repatriated. Trillions are currently held offshore, piling up, being used for chess pieces. US resources are being used to sustain those profits, and those profits should be taxed by US authorities. I concede that this isn't being done currently.... which is because our legislators can be bribed by campaign contributions.

A universal tax rate only works if one can control the universe, which isn't really possible. See Caymans, Panama, St Kitts & Nevis, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Nuie, ad infinitum, for further tax reduction needs.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[AvitarX]

I doubt it, this is about either paying people enough, or automating them away.

It's about halting the subsidy on jobs that should either pay more, or not exist.

It's from the perspective that jobs should be enough to live on (there is fair debate that maybe that isn't the case, but it's the premise of the law).

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[bluefoxlucid]

Thought by many who have no idea what they're talking about.

There are excellent, valid economic arguments for a demogrant. The 200-year-old argument that "in 5 years everybody will be unemployed!" isn't one of them.

The modern direct attempts to tax automation (technology) as some sort of fix would actually cause unemployment: reductions in costs increase purchasing power at the expense of structural change (people become unemployed, while other people eventually become employed--not necessarily the same people). A tax directed at the cost reduction prohibits a price reduction, leaving prices high as employment falls away, preventing the creation of jobs.

The argument for taxing automation is a Haynes argument--the one used by Republicans for trickle-down and such. The argument for not taxing automation is a Keynes argument--an argument that says jobs are created by consumer buying power. Keynesian economics tend to highlight problems with things like payroll taxes (artificial raising of prices) and support taxes on corporate profits instead (profits happen AFTER cost-price exchange, rather than as PART of the cost driving price).

In other words: a tax on employees would do as you say, destroying employment; a tax on "automation-driven productivity" is the same kind of tax, and has the same kind of impact on employment.

Re: But how does this square with UBI?

[XXongo]

I'm all for UBI when combined with castration/neutering - you want to mooch on other people's back - that's fine but you don't get to procreate and increase the population and ruin the planet.

Nope. Turns out that the people opposed to basic income (and opposed to any form of social assistance for the poor) are also the same people who are opposed to government-provided birth control.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[Archangel Michael]

If you can automate a human out of a job, you should. Automation eliminated all kinds of jobs over the last 150 years, and it isn't going to change any time soon. That automation has enabled subsistence farmers to become very wealthy in comparison middle class people of today, with cars, high tech cooking, purified bottles of water with flavor, a pocket device that gives you access to the world's knowledge.

And with all that progress, some people are no longer able to do the jobs they used to do.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[mysidia]

This tax is making it more expensive to KEEP employees, and cheaper to automated more.

That's absolutely fine.... more automation is good.

The bill is a first step

I think the next step is to create a Shared obligation to support benefits of the unemployable

Basically; calculate the government benefits such as SNAP, Medicaid, etc, paid to those who are Not employed OR
Who are not able to be employed at any job due to automation, or due to permanent disability, injury, etc.
POOL the total costs.

Identify EVERY individual human working for any company or business in the country whose cumulative personal salary or gross compensation across all jobs exceeds $500,000 per year. Add up that number as the total of Pool A.

Identify EVERY operational business that generates revenues and profits AND has an Owner or Shareholder whose stake in the business has that person with a share of more than $200,000 a year in profits or $1,000,000 in earnings or sales.
Add up this number as the total of Pool B.

Allocate a tax to every person in Pool A which is (This person's excess $$ above the threshold) X (50% of Total federal benefits paid to all unemployable/unemployed) / (Total excess $$ of every individual in Pool A)

Allocate a tax to every person in Pool B which is (This person's excess $$ above the threshold) X (50% Total federal benefits paid to all unemployable/unemployed) / (Total excess $$ of every individual in Pool B)

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[mysidia]

and tax them the way out of the country when they move their assets to the Caymans, Panama, etc.

Levy taxes on shareholders who have shares causing their share of earnings to meet a minimum threshold,
and tax taking shares or wealth in excess of a certain amount outside of US jurisdiction.

For example: if a company takes their operation out of the US, then all the shareholders whose interest in the
company exceeds $1 Million in equity value will immediately be required to pay an export tax on their interest
in the company or surrender shares to the IRS.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[mysidia]

In other words: a tax on employees would do as you say, destroying employment

A POST-EMPLOYMENT world enabled by automation could be a great thing.
That's why I say tax all individuals holding interest in revenue-generating businesses equally
above a threshold, and tax them even more if they have employees --- then the ones employing automation are still at an advantage.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[postbigbang]

Great idea.... but the pace of stock trades makes it impossible to track. The nature of a corporation is as a tracking body of pooled shareholder interests, and ultimately, the corporation has to be taxed as its constituent stockholders through a year are in the trillions as an aggregate. Nice theory, but IMHO, impractical.

A universal VAT might be interesting, but it has the same problem, which is enforcement and reciprocity.The squabbles would be endless.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[jedidiah]

> Levy taxes on shareholders

Great. Kick retirees and aspiring retirees in the balls.

Re: But how does this square with UBI?

[jedidiah]

> Nope. Turns out that the people opposed to basic income (and opposed to any form of social assistance for the poor) are also the same people who are opposed to government-provided birth control.

The pill is a $5 generic medication.

Unless you are so poor that the government is already paying for your own health care, there is no reason you can't buy it yourself.

There is no FUCKING NEED for you do be the government's itty bitty baby here.

Somebody has to pay for shit. You can't ALL be takers.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[virtualXTC]

Can we say that the Bernie tax is the first attempt to reclaim from profitable automated industry the funds needed to support UBI?

>

No. If mods were doing their job, you'd be moderated off-topic rather than insightful. This has nothing to do with UBI, and is only about fixing the salary loopholes that Walmart and Amazon are notorious for exploiting well before our automation fears.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[kalieaire]

I sort of see this as a stopgap so that the costs of Medicaid, Section 8, SNAP, and other similar low income assistance programs don't skyrocket over budget causing politicians to potentially de-fund them.

I see UBI as a completely separate solution which doesn't exactly end the need for assistance programs.  Because does it make sense to have people pay for medicaid or snap when they are being provided w/ UBI? It should already be pre-paid.

Though if it's the accounting method, I can see that citizen X is being provided with UBI at a value of Y and these are the amounts being deducted for the assistance programs they participate in.

Re: But how does this square with UBI?

[Sloppy]

the people opposed to basic income (and opposed to any form of social assistance for the poor) are also the same people who are opposed to government-provided birth control.

Lots of people from diverse backgrounds, on both the right and left, see UBI as likely a loss rather than a gain. Some are mystics, some are rational. Some do care about other peoples' birth control, and some don't. Some want the poor to all disappear and die, while others think the poor are people. Some think the government should micromanage the economy, others think free markets do a better job.

If you've already calculated that UBI would actually work, that's great! Go ahead and persuade people of the idea's virtues. Who knows, you might be right. But if you believe that those opposed to UBI have some kind of a magic cross-issue unity, that is totally nuts and is likely to distract people from your UBI arguments. They'll be thinking about how you said something of Trump-class stupidity, having totally forgotten whatever numbers you gave them about UBI.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[AvitarX]

I agree.

I want increased minimum wage, because I want non productive jobs to be automated (non productive in the sense that working that job doesn't support the worker).

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[viperidaenz]

Do you currently receive any of the following benefits:
SNAP, Section 8 Housing Assistance, Medicare......

If so, please deposit application in the recycling box on your way out.
Alternatively, please send this application form to a lawyer, so you can sue us

Re: But how does this square with UBI?

[Ost99]

The solution is to tax productivity and not employment.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[sarren1901]

You must not work any of these jobs you want automated away. Some of us are at mid life and may not be trainable to do your kind of work. Ironically, a lot of these jobs you want to automate away actually pay decently. Well enough in fact, that if both members of the household worked there, they would be able to afford at least a condo in the average US city.

If you take away all those useless jobs, you are putting so many paper pushers, service professions and jobs I don't even think about out of work. Resign all those people to what will be essentially become poverty once things adjust.

It sure must be nice to have been blessed with both the interest and capabilities to be a doctor, lawyer (much of that can be automated if we let it), programmers and other jobs that require a high intellect and drive to stick through the education process. Many of us just don't have all the necessary traits to get there.

Unless you find purpose for all those people, there will be massive social unrest.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[AvitarX]

If people are working full time and on SNAP, WIC, or Medicare, the job does not in fact pay decently.

You describe buying a condo in an average city on two incomes, that sounds like you're 50-100 percent above current minimim wage, and not the type of job I'm describing

I specifically qualified that I meant jobs that don't support the worker as jobs that shouldn't exist (either do to higher pay, or automation).

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[bluefoxlucid]

Let me try to explain this.

Back in 1914, someone invented a thing called a "wooden shipping pallet". They found that palletized canned goods could be loaded and unloaded in 4 hours, while the same crew usually needed three 16-hour days to do so. That's a 92% reduction in labor to load and unload shipped goods.

That's automation: you don't get zero human labor work, but rather a reduction in total invested human labor. That wooden pallet still takes human labor to make, so you get around an 85%-90% reduction in shipping labor overall.

Think about all the things people had in 1914--the things the working family could buy. It's a lot less stuff than today, right? Even if we go back to 1989, when you could have a cell phone--a $4,000 device with $50/month service and 40 cent per minute voice calls, amounting to over $9,000 for the phone and $500/month to talk for two hours per week today. Those price reductions came by reducing cost--by reducing labor.

Now imagine if we had made a post-employment world in 1914.

You're asking for something specific: there will never be any increase in standard-of-living again. We're going to make sure what costs 10% of the income today still costs 10% of the income after new technology rolls in, and simply reduce the level of employment by the difference. 100 years from now, few people will work, and they'll work little; they'll live as we do today, with no advances in standard-of-living except free time.

I want shorter working hours, accomplished by becoming 5% richer when we could become 10% richer. I don't want to call this the end of technological development and ensure our society never gains a higher standard-of-living than it has today.

Re: But how does this square with UBI?

[XXongo]

I wasn't commenting on UBI.
I was commenting on the hypocrisy of people on the right-- like the anonymous coward whose post I was replying to-- who in one breath tell us that anybody who get any sort of support from the government should be sterilized so they can't breed, and in the next breath tell us that government shouldn't give people birth control or support anything other than "abstinence education".

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[mysidia]

You're asking for something specific: there will never be any increase in standard-of-living again. ....

I don't want to call this the end of technological development and ensure our society never gains a higher standard-of-living than it has today.

That's not what a post-employment world is.
A post-employment world is not an end of innovation.

A post-employment world is one in which the vast majority of the population can no longer be gainfully employed through no fault of their own AND has no need to work, but businesses and economies continue, and people's cost of living is met ---

scarcity is made no longer an issue, so a post-employment world is also a post-scarcity world.

Ultimately it is a society where people essentially have access to unlimited resources and time to do what they want in life ----
they can fully actualize themselves creatively, or if you choose: you can burn it all on fun and entertainment, but it becomes
every individual's choice what to spend their time and resources on.

Some people's creative outlet will be invention, so inventions continue to be made, but they are CHOOSING to work.

Also, the need for some professions' continue --- For a long time there will be a need for teachers, doctors, and lawyers:
even if initially almost all the supportive work can be quickly automated - this is a transition that takes decades and perhaps a hundred years.

A post employment world may be something like 80% of the population don't
do work, and the remaining 20% do it mainly for love or vocation; in most cases 10 to 20 hours a week, not 40, AND
nothing to do with survival.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[bluefoxlucid]

You're describing an ideal. That's fine; I'm pointing out a flaw in your mechanism.

Your mechanism is that automation will make a $2 loaf of bread cost only $0.30 cents to make instead of $1.90, so we're going to tax the business enough to extract $1.60 per loaf of bread. The next breadmaker over won't go from a 5% profit at $2 to a 330% profit at $1 and take all your business, compelling you to sell at $0.80, etc., until you both maximize your profits at around $0.35.

You suggest we'll just pay the now-unemployed bread factory workers their prior salary, and progress will continue without work.

If you did that, then those now-unemployed bread factory workers would be able to buy the same things they could, and no more. Prices would not fall compared to wages. There would be no way to introduce new products to the market because nobody would be able to buy them; and any improvement to a product would raise its price because you tax any capacity to make the product at a lower cost.

So you say innovation will continue. I say nobody will be able to buy any newly-innovated thing because they'll be paying for expensive existing things that never become a smaller portion of their income.

In other words: a 1995 Chevrolet costing 56% of the median income came with some stuff, while a 2016 Chevrolet costing 56% of the income came with all the stuff that you'd get in a 1995 Chevrolet costing 200% of the median income. Thing is you want to tax the productivity gains, so that particular 2016 Chevrolet costs 200% of the median income, and 56% of the median income in 2016 buys a Chevrolet identical to what the 56%-of-median 1995 Chevrolet had.

Consumers can't afford power windows, anti-lock brakes, and airbags because those things used to cost way more than consumers could afford, and then you decided to tax the living shit out of them when we found a way to make those things affordable to the consumer--ensuring the consumer still can't afford those things and never will.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[sarren1901]

You describe retail and insurance sales type work, correct? I work retail pulling down 50k with pension, healthcare and 4 weeks vacation. It's union and yes it may get automated away before I can retire out in 15 more years.

You can still get my job and work your way up to about what I have. If two people married did that, you would own a decent condo 20 minutes from the beach in San Diego county in a decent area.

I just hope the automation takes closer to 40 years instead of say 10.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[Uberbah]

"Wont somebody please think of the capitalist children!" is so obnoxious. The objects of your misdirection can keep it local, or pay the taxes like everyone else.

Re:But how does this square with UBI?

[Uberbah]

Great idea.... but the pace of stock trades makes it impossible to track. The nature of a corporation is as a tracking body of pooled shareholder interests, and ultimately, the corporation has to be taxed as its constituent stockholders through a year are in the trillions as an aggregate. Nice theory, but IMHO, impractical.

Can't be tracked? How do you think stock exchanges handle transactions and prevent fraud? More to the point, if banks can track billions of credit card/EFT transactions every day with near-perfect accuracy, methinks they can handle a little high-frequency trading.

Sounds Fair

[WillAffleckUW]

Need to do it for Walmart too.

Re:Sounds Fair

[Anonymous Coward]

It's as if you didn't even read the summary.

How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[jfdavis668]

Can someone explain to me how this guy went from being a school teacher and carpenter to mayor to senator, and somehow became wealthy along the way? He has to have some money to buy that home complex on Grand Isle.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[Guyle]

Let me Google that for you. I didn't research his whole life's story for you, but there's a simple reason he's a millionaire now: he wrote a book and is banking on the royalties.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[omnichad]

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Looks like he wasn't making a lot before - but his wife also worked a lot too. But a book deal really boosted his income in the last few years.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[jfdavis668]

Ok, that does explain it.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[Dare nMc]

He is an author. He made over a million in royalties from the books he has authored, in just the last year alone.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[jfdavis668]

His wife was involved in the collapse of Burlington College. Took out a loan to buy more land, and the school couldn't pay back the loan. After that I don't know what she did, except help with the campaign.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[jeff4747]

As other mentioned, he got a book deal.

Also, he's a Senator. Senators get paid $174,000 per year. Before that, he was in the House, where he also got a 6-figure salary.

If you'd been making a six-figure salary for that long, you'd be able to afford a lake house too.

Re:How did Bernie Sanders become wealthy?

[_Sharp'r_]

Don't worry, your initial instinct was right. Book deals like Bernie, Hillary, Obama get are essentially rewards/bribes for left-wing politicians. In Bernie's case, his books would have had to sell 5x as many copies as they actually did in order for him to have "earned" his giant advance from the publisher. For anyone else with that kind of advance/sales, that'd be a disaster for the publisher, but he has enough power/influence that it's written off as "supporting the right ideas" and a cost of their doing business.

nice but, stay conservative

[evanchik]

sounds great, the the Dow will drop back to the 80's maybe 30's

Why not raise the minimum wage?

[Anonymous Coward]

If their objective is to ensure all Americans are being paid minimum X, then why not raise the minimum wage to X? The employee is going to cost at least X, probably more because of the increased costs the bureaucracy SNAP and other assistance programs require. The government does not appear that it would make money off of this scheme either. Is there something I am missing with proposing this tax?

Re:Why not raise the minimum wage?

[jeff4747]

Because minimum wage would affect all employers. This specifically targets employers who's business plan requires very large numbers of low-paid workers.

Frankly, I'd prefer both. Employers can either handle the problem themselves by paying more, or they can let us handle the problem but we charge for our services.

I love it.

[Tsolias]

"We have to cut $20/month from each one of you, due to more goberment taxes"
or
"Mr. President, what do you prefer, 600000 unemployed, or 600000 employed people?"

Amazon has the last word.

Apple, Google, e.t.c.: *laughs in outsourcing*

Re: I love it.

[jd]

Trump despises Bezos and cares nothing for the unemployed.

Cutting from the low-earners won't change anything, since that increases the tax they pay.

Cutting a percentage point or two from all those earning $10 million a year or more to and diverting that to paying the low earners will eliminate the tax bill and will cost less than the tax would.

That would raise the profits of the company and share value. It's the bonuses that are the big source of income for big earners, so bigger bonuses will cut into, or eliminate, the loss from regular wages.

Then they will find another way

[mordred99]

Well then they will find another way. People are no longer full time employees (max 32 hours a week). Take away all corporate related benefits (no more healthcare, etc.) There are 100 ways they can get around this.

The issue is also what is a "livable" wage? I hate that term as you hear it thrown around a ton with politicians and it is anywhere from 110% poverty to something like $50k a year. I know parts of this bill are tying it to those receiving government benefits, but sometimes people are getting those benefits for other reasons than they "don't make enough".

I think it is a terrible way to punish a company as it is not a metric which is able to be measured (without additional big brother and possible retribution) by companies for self reporting. Easier way is to raise the minimum wage. I know it has issues (wait staff only getting a little, prices go up, etc.) but that is the true answer.

Re:Then they will find another way

[omnichad]

This is to fight back against forcing people into part-time status. If you have 500 part-time employees and most of them want to be full-time, you're running a scam and you deserve to be called out on it.

Easier way is to raise the minimum wage.

US Government only raises the national minimum wage. Not all areas need an increase to the minimum wage. This is just a way of tying the minimum wage to the actual cost of living. And if you locate yourself somewhere that nobody lives and everyone has to commute, then it's the employee location that matters for determining the appropriate living wage and not the company location.

Re:Then they will find another way

[mordred99]

Tie the wage increases and minimum wage based on CPI per zip code. This is information the government has had for over 70 years (and tracks monthly).

Will it help?

[Roger W Moore]

I applaud the aims but I can't help thinking that it might end up with employees claiming benefits getting fired by the company and the rest ending up getting crap pay and being too afraid to claim any benefits for fear of being fired. Isn't the better way to do this to set a living minimum wage?

Re:Will it help?

[cayenne8]

Or, I guess it will possibly encourage companies to either not hire or fire employees that DO take or attempt to take Federal benefit programs like these....if you do SNAP, you aren't eligible to be an Amazon employee.

I could see how this could backfire.

I don't think being on the public dole is a "protected class".....and many states these days are "at-will" for work, so you can be fired with no reason given.

Re:Will it help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Beware of unintended consequences.

That's usually what you end up getting.

Re:Will it help?

[Linsaran]

I mean, ideally setting a living minimum wage would be ideal; but this particular bill might be more palatable to the right. The concern that people would get fired is probably overblown. For one thing it'd probably be a protected clause like how you can't fire someone because of their race or ethnicity. Second if people need benefits they're going to claim them regardless; people need to eat and have a home. Thirdly chances are the government isn't going to be so granular as to tell big corporations which employees are claiming benefits, they just get a tax bill for the totals.

Re:Will it help?

[Alain Williams]

The mandatory acceptance of trade unions at these companies is one way of stopping this. As long as workers act as individuals they can be picked off one by one; if they can organise collectively they you can have equal forces. I know that many do not like this, but without unions you have the large forcing the small.

Re:Will it help?

[apoc.famine]

And fourth, so many of their employees are claiming them that they wouldn't have enough employees left if they let them all go.

Between this and Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act, we might see some real change in the corporate monsters that are destroying the middle class right now.

That is, if either ever make it into law.....

Re:Will it help?

[Thud457]

"ok, you're no longer an employee, you're a contractor."
Or for W-mart, they're "associates" already, just give them profit sharing of 0.0000000000000001% and now they're "owners".

Re:Will it help?

[Monster_user]

That actually makes it sound like a good thing. If Amazon or the like refuses to hire "at risk" employees who might need welfare or other benefits to sustain themselves, then they will likely eliminate their hiring pool and it should result in forcing them to raise their wages.

Meanwhile for teenagers starting out, who don't need welfare or a "living wage" this wouldn't prevent them from being hired for jobs or gaining experience, etc.

It seems like an ideal solution. My only concern is whether the jobs needed are sufficiently profitable to sustain the population without redistributing the GDP. If our country can sustain a population, but if there is no work of sufficient value to redistribute the wealth generated by the nation as a whole, then this tax could destroy the marginal growth in GDP we might experience. Will it tip the scales back towards recirculating the GDP throughout the entire nation by increasing the value of labor, or will it tip the scales towards a jobless economy by making the work not worth the cost?

Re:Will it help?

[mnemotronic]

... we might see some real change in the corporate monsters that are destroying the middle class right now

I'd like to think that the destruction of everything below the upper-class is somehow related to the top 1% of americans controlling 40% of the wealth. It allows a select group of americans to sway the outcome of elections and buy the loyalty of our elected "representatives".

Re:Will it help?

[Lab Rat Jason]

Ironically, this might suppress said dependents desire to leave the nest...

Re:Will it help?

[laie_techie]

I mean, ideally setting a living minimum wage would be ideal; but this particular bill might be more palatable to the right. The concern that people would get fired is probably overblown. For one thing it'd probably be a protected clause like how you can't fire someone because of their race or ethnicity. Second if people need benefits they're going to claim them regardless; people need to eat and have a home. Thirdly chances are the government isn't going to be so granular as to tell big corporations which employees are claiming benefits, they just get a tax bill for the totals.

As an independent who leans right, this bill seems like too much government interference; I doubt Libertarians would like it much more. We have minimum wage; companies can pay more than this but can't pay less. Publicly traded companies have a responsibility to their share holders to increase the value of their stock. This can be controlled in part by paying employees as little as possible while still retaining enough employees to get the work done. There is debate over what the minimum wage should be and arguments for the idea of a living wage. If people can't support their family on their current wage, let them try get a better paying job if there's one to be had.

Re:Will it help?

[mysidia]

might end up with employees claiming benefits getting fired by the company

If the bill doesn't address it, then my suggestion would be: Tax on benefits does not end with termination --- If an employee receiving government benefits is terminated, then the employer continues paying Tax for all government benefits that employee receives - Including any unemployment benefits or increase in SNAP or other program benefits caused by unemployment - for the earlier of 4 years, or until that employee is hired and maintains jobs for a total of at least 2000 hours of work with new employers, at which time the last year's "Benefits tax" amounts paid on that person's benefits by both their new and previous employers will be credited or refunded to their previous employer.

Re:Will it help?

[cayenne8]

It appears the average salary at Amazon is: $28,446.

Now...is this actually on the level of money you can make AND get Federal Assistance?

Re:Will it help?

[apoc.famine]

Yes. And where did that wealth come from? From investments in businesses and the stock market. Both of which have been doing excellent due to record profits from businesses. And why do they have record profits? Because their labor costs are shrinking.

These bills don't immediately fix the problem at the top, but they do provide a bit of a safety valve on the wealth concentration pipeline.

Re:Will it help?

[Anonymous Coward]

There already *is* a minimum wage, but how does it not apply to Amazon employees? You have to dig deeper; and this is what Bernie has done. Let's say, you're Amazon, and you want to put people to work, but not have to pay minimum wage. How do you do that? Make the new people work less than 30 hours a week, or something like that. This also means you can avoid providing them with health insurance (these new guys can apply for Medicaid)

I too, applaud Bernie's aims, because I do need to find work, and almost signed at the dotted line for Amazon. It's like our president mr. orange needed to say, that xxx thousand jobs were filled! But filling up these spots at Amazon and their ilk is more like reserving a spot for drones or robots to fill later on. But that's another story.

Re:Will it help?

[AuMatar]

That wage includes all the very high salaried engineers in the same pool as the warehouse workers. Nobody is claiming the engineers need assistance. Its the scores of warehouse workers that need it.

Re:Will it help?

[The-Ixian]

I am thinking that the government doesn't have to necessarily *tell* the employer who is specifically claiming benefits... they would just know that some people are. I would think that a company as big as the ones being targeted would have several employees claiming assistance.

Re:Will it help?

[onepoint]

Your point is very valid. But I think, and I don't know if employer retaliation is still legal in something like this. But I see your point and think it's very valid

Re:Will it help?

[The-Ixian]

How will the employer know who, specifically, is drawing the benefits? I would think that the government wouldn't have to share names... just send a bill....

Re:Will it help?

[cayenne8]

I am thinking that the government doesn't have to necessarily *tell* the employer who is specifically claiming benefits... they would just know that some people are. I would think that a company as big as the ones being targeted would have several employees claiming assistance.

I wonder, is it public information published by the Feds on who is on support?

Is this available via FOIA?

Re:Will it help?

[aaarrrgggh]

If it includes "contractors," then the companies will need to do the reporting. I applaud the concept, but I can see all kinds of potential challenges.

Re:Will it help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Working teenagers do need a living wage. They should be saving up for college or a house or car or marriage and retirement.

Saying teenagers don't need a living wage is BS. This comes from the same people who want to take away Social Security and Medicare, saying people should pay their own way.

You need to get a decent paycheck to pay your own way.

And BTW, most of the people I see working those minimum wage jobs seem to be well past their teenage years.

Re:Will it help?

[aaarrrgggh]

Median wage would likely be more representative.

Re: Will it help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not available to the public but recipients have to submit pay stubs quarterly. The govt can easily lookup who has employees on welfare. Now how they would confirm employment if a temp agency hired folks...

Re:Will it help?

[bistromath007]

Amazon doesn't know who gets government cheese. The government does. As a result, unless this bill is a trainwreck in implementation, Amazon can't really do anything but raise wages or pay the bill.

Re: Will it help?

[dfenstrate]

"The curious task of economics is to teach men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
How could you possibly think this wouldn't choke out almost all hiring and impose impossibly high costs? Corporations don't have unlimited funds, this sort of crazy plan would ensure employees who pose even the slightest risk of being a burden would never get hired.

Have you considered lifting people up individually? It's popular to cry for a "living wage!", but plenty of people already make that kind of money without your help.
Perhaps it's best to raise the skills and professionalism of people making minimum wage to match the abilities of the folks who make a good wage without your help. (See Mike Rowe)

Re:Will it help?

[Nethemas the Great]

I don't believe it would necessarily result in employees getting fired for "claiming benefits." After all, who would Amazon, Walmart, et al. replace them with? There's a trouble with bills of this kind however, you're just squeezing a sponge. The water will run out elsewhere. Perhaps each retail outlet becomes it's own subsidiary.

Even if this bill did worked to bump up wages I'm not convinced it'd do much to address the underlying goal, reducing the number of at risk families. Financial insecurity is less of a cause of at risk families than it is a symptom. These folks work at places like Amazon distribution, Walmart, etc. because they cannot get a job located higher on the ladder. They lack necessary skills and/or education, many times they possess some sort of dysfunctional component: complex trauma, disability, addiction, etc.. What do you think an alcoholic would do with a bit more cash in his pocket? Pay for substance abuse therapy? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it.

How you address the issue depends upon which side of the political spectrum you're on and it's associated morality. One side will assert that it's a matter of personal responsibility, a.k.a. "not my problem" the other contends it's a matter of corporate responsibility, a.k.a. "leave no man behind". This contest between the two positions has created a stalemate. Wasting resources with half-measures like this bill. My personal morality finds me disgusted by the sight of children being trapped within their parents' destructive position in life. It astounds me that anyone can take a callous approach to this, particularly so given that the "family" is supposed to take such an elevated position within their ideology.

Re: Will it help?

[reanjr]

What happens when Amazon disputes it? Most likely, the government will have to provide a name so Amazon can refute the claim.

Re:Will it help?

[jeff4747]

Benefits are based on income.

How, oh how, will an employer possibly have any sort of hint about the income of their employees?! /snark

Re:Will it help?

[apoc.famine]

You seem to think that there's no federal definition of an employee.....it really doesn't matter what a business wants to call someone. We've had this sorted out for at least a few decades now.

Re:Will it help?

[Anonymous Coward]

$20,424 is the annual income to obtain federal SNAP assistance. If the average salary at Amazon is $28,446, what's the median? Without that, we know nothing.

In 1986, the average starting salary of a UNC Geography graduate was something like $100,000. If you look at the median in that example, it's much much lower, but Michael Jordan was a graduate of UNC with a degree in Geography in 1986. Bezos's salary of something like $1.2 million/year (that's the actual salary, what he makes off the stock is another story) would be included into the average salary at amazon, as would the board members, the engineers, the higher paid office workers, etc.

Re:Will it help?

[Immerman]

Investments don't create wealth - they capture it. Wealth is generated by the person on the factory floor making something someone will buy, or the person providing a service that someone will buy. Everything else is just a question of how that wealth gets distributed,.

Re:Will it help?

[cbeaudry]

How do you have a factory without investments?
Factories do not create themselves. It requires investments and risk management, planning and creativity as well as pioneering abilities.

The factory floor person is paid according to his market value, based on his skill set and ambitions.

Those who are not ambitious and wish only to show up at work, do their 9 to 5, be out the door without a worry in the world, do not get to reap a share of the wealth generated by the TEAM, except for the portion which represents his labor. His labor is compensated for in his salary and benefits, full stop.

If he is worth more, he can go find a job elsewhere, where someone will recognize his worth.

No one OWES anyone anything. Its an exchange of services. If you have no marketable skills, you cannot command premium pay. If you are too lazy to work on your skill set, either by putting in effort or going for training, it is no ones fault but your own.

Re:Will it help?

[Solandri]

People seem to think unemployment payments are a government-funded service. They're not. Unemployment is pre-paid by your employer. Every employer pre-pays a percentage of each employee's wages into the state/federal unempoyment funds (it is not deducted from the employee's wages). The percentage scales based on how how many of and how much your ex-employees have collected in unemployment.

The government tries to keep the amount an employer has paid in line with current and future expected unemployment payments. If the percentage of your employees filing for unemployment suddenly spikes causing the employer to exceed the unemployment funds in their account (e.g. you have a bunch of layoffs), the government will jack up the percentage the employer has to pay in unemployment taxes until the employer's account is in balance again. If you've held multiple jobs in a short while, the government will go through a complicated calculation where some of your unemployment comes from your most recent employer's fund, some of it from the employer before, some of it from the employer before that, etc. Scaled based on how long you worked at each employer and how long it's been since you worked there.

So the net effect is that your employer pre-pays your unemployment payments into an escrow fund held by the government.

Re:Will it help?

[Voyager529]

I know that many do not like this, but without unions you have the large forcing the small.

Unions have their own set of issues. Now, don't get me wrong, I think both Amazon and Wal-Mart have gotten to the point where a union is needed to provide a counterbalance, but the folks who have issues with unions don't have those issues because they believe large corporations should be able to do whatever they want to their employees.

Unions help negotiate contracts for workers. That's generally a good thing. However, union strikes cause issues for people who aren't part of the problem - think transit union strikes that cause people who rely on them to be late for work for a week straight...unions in general have a poor track record for attempting to mitigate collateral damage.

Unions defend their employees. This is great for those times when employees need a lawyer to combat a false accusation claim. However, many of the police officers who shot unarmed citizens managed to avoid any sort of consequence because the union went to bat for them. For less extreme examples, it's highly exceptional for a union to refuse to defend an employee who is legitimately unproductive and causes other employees to have to pick up the slack. The phrase "good enough for union work" is not a resounding affirmation of excellence. Similarly, when a job is legitimately done and fewer workers are needed to complete the work, instead of fighting for a good severance package and networking with other unions to facilitate a seamless employment experience for everyone, unions will instead fight to retain positions for employees who really aren't needed.

After a while, unions do what they're supposed to do and get things back to a reasonable balance between employers (who expect productivity in exchange for money) and workers (who want enough money to pay their bills and have a reasonable expectation of not landing in the hospital from a work-related injury). However, unions seldom step back once things are in order; given enough time, most unions will start to focus on self-justification. Once this happens, unions start to become liabilities to everyone. Unions start to become more demanding than the employers from whom the employees needed protection. This makes non-union options more appealing to everyone, including the members.

The pendulum is now at the level with Amazon and Wal-Mart where unions are very likely to do some good. Though tangential, I'd even throw Uber into the mix as well. However, the "unions aren't a good thing" mentality isn't coming from a disdain for workers, but the realization that "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"is not a paradigm which considers unions to be exempt.

Re: Will it help?

[guruevi]

Definitely. In most cases/states $35k is the cutoff unless you're pregnant/disabled then it can be even higher.

Re:Will it help?

[Solandri]

I'd like to think that the destruction of everything below the upper-class is somehow related to the top 1% of americans controlling 40% of the wealth

That's mostly a self-created problem. The top 1% only makes about 19% of the income. That they're able to leverage that to attain 40% of the wealth (integral of income minus expenses over time) tells you that (1) the 1% are more likely to spend their income on things that retain or grow in value, rather than disposable or transitory things like entertainment, and (2) the 99% are willing to pay exorbitant interest rates to borrow money from the 1% (that interest becomes income for the 1%). I call it self-created because this is something the 99% can solve on their own. They don't have to spend as much of their income on things which quickly or immediately lose value. And they can put off major purchases for some years while they save up money, rather than take out a loan to buy it right now.

The bigger concern should probably be that the bottom 60% also makes about 19% of total income. That is, the income of the top 1% just about equals the income of the bottom 60%. That is, for those income valuations to be correct, an individual in the top 1% has to be 60x as producitve as someone in the bottom 60%. I'm a fiscal conservative, and that sounds pretty hard to believe. Unlike spending, the bottom 60% aren't really in control of their income. Making it much more likely that the problem as that they're simply being underpaid.

Re:Will it help?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hmm, a quick google for amazon median wage shows that the median Amazon employee was making $28K (as of the beginning of May this year).

So, it looks like OP's "average" WAS "median"....

Re:Will it help?

[Frobnicator]

Why only list entertainment on consumable and transitory things? The category also includes things like food, clothing, medicine, and transportation. It also includes costs of rented things, like rented housing versus home ownership, and the cost of loans and interest.

You're right that the upper echelons have more discretion to where they put it, they have the option to put it into income-generating and growth-generating items instead of consumable. To be sure they'll still buy more consumables, but they have the option to buy things that grow. The farther down the totem pole people get, the less of that option people have. Some have a small portion on the top, like a small amount of profit generated from selling food, but selling them is a wealth-gathering exercise to those who own the business already.

And that's the crux of the cycle. If you are poor you remain poor, you cannot cross that gap, you cannot buy a home but must rent housing, you cannot buy value-generating or value-retaining things because they are too expensive, you must rent where the value goes to someone else. If you are wealthy you can buy more of those things that further generate wealth, buy another home or even buy an apartment complex to rent out, letting the wealthy capture even more in successive rounds.

Re: Will it help?

[originalGMC]

Perhaps it's best to raise the skills and professionalism of people making minimum wage to match the abilities of the folks who make a good wage without your help. (See Mike Rowe)

This is a profoundly limiting argument. There are tons of people in the USA. There are some jobs that do not require skills and professionalism - they require packing boxes with the shit you buy. Your argument seems to suggest these people do not deserve a wage above the poverty line. Regardless of the level of skills or professionalism that are required for a specific job, that specific job still needs doing. The person that does it deserves to be fairly compensated - fair meaning they can afford food, shelter and the occasional visit with a nurse. Keep in mind - wage minimums are not congruent nationwide. The Bezos' of the world know this, so they open up warehouses in areas were $7.15 an hour is "acceptable" .... [sigh]

Re:Will it help?

[sarren1901]

That's a lot easier to do when you make 300k or more. The cost of living is not proportionately higher for people that make more money. Sure, they could over buy a house and be house broke I suppose, but really, anyone making over 300k has more then enough cash to cover all their needs and have plenty of money to invest into making more money.

300k is the 98.9% bracket so clearly above most of us, yet if you get there, you'll likely need for nothing. Less then that and living well in the top 10 cities will still pinch you though.

The average US household brings in less then 100k a year. In 2014 the figure was around 74k. That does not account for where those average families live, but even in a modest place to live, they aren't left with 10k or more a year to invest.

Re:Will it help?

[VeryFluffyBunny]

My only concern is whether the jobs needed are sufficiently profitable to sustain the population without redistributing the GDP. If our country can sustain a population, but if there is no work of sufficient value to redistribute the wealth generated by the nation as a whole, then this tax could destroy the marginal growth in GDP we might experience. Will it tip the scales back towards recirculating the GDP throughout the entire nation by increasing the value of labor, or will it tip the scales towards a jobless economy by making the work not worth the cost?

You're forgetting the $trillions in profits sitting in tax-havens. The fat cats will be fine. They were fine when the USA implemented a 95% rate in the top tax bracket under FDR in order to pay for the new deal. Macro-economics (national economies) don't work the same way as micro-economics (accountancy).

Re: Will it help?

[LynnwoodRooster]

The investor "sells" their money - up front cash for a return later on. Lots of investors walk away with nothing, like when a company goes bankrupt.

Re:Will it help?

[Immerman]

And where did the money come from to make those investments? People bought products made in previous factories, by previous laborers.

Re:Will it help?

[BrianMarshall]

Love the beginning of the summary...

A public spat between Amazon Sen. Bernie Sanders over workers' wages...

Um... Bernie Sanders, the senator from Amazon, is having a spat with whom?

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

You make it sound like it is possible to work at these wages and not claim benefits. That honestly isn't one of the options these people have with the exception of a handful of people doing a "side hussle".

To suggest that it is this OR a minimum wage is false, logically, neither impacts the other. This shouldn't change your opinion on a minimum wage or oppose it. The danger is people saying things like you just did and presenting that false dilemma. There is no reason anyone should oppose this unless they are completely void of ethics AND a major stakeholder in a company like this (if you aren't a major stakeholder and have no ethics this is a freebie for creating the impression you do and milking it for profit on something that matters later).

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

I couldn't. People who don't need those benefits won't take employment at these wages, people taking employment at these wages by definition are going to require these benefits.

The only exception I can think of are retirees who can work a certain number of hours a week without losing benefits but they amount they earn is docked from their benefits now anyway.

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

"Thirdly chances are the government isn't going to be so granular as to tell big corporations which employees are claiming benefits, they just get a tax bill for the totals."

Which becomes the basis for the objections. They have no way to anticipate what the bill will be.

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

Top .01% really, if you go 1% you suddenly group in a bunch of people who earned success by becoming doctors, lawyers, and engineers. The top 1% are high income, the problem is those with high wealth. That high wealth largely takes the form of stock and interest in corporations. While they don't control the majority of corporate stock they do stock the executive ranks/boards, the controlling positions in banks and mutual funds, and often control the stock that matters.

Of course these people have so much influence the government won't give you the finer breakdowns but I use a simple rule of thumb, if you have so much wealth that putting it all in the S&P 500 would provide enough dividend output to put you in the top 1% by income, you are the wealthy we are talking about.

Re: Will it help?

[cbeaudry]

The laborer who worked in that other factory saved up and invested in his retirement fund, either in stocks or mutual funds so he can increase his wealth for retirement.

Investments do not capture wealth, they are part if the economic growth of the world which generate wealth.

Investments arent evil money, they are your retirement investments. Which help curent and future generations rise from poverty.

From 2000 to now world poverty has veen reduced by 50%. Thats the fastest upward mobility in the history of mankind.

Socialism will destroy it all if you let it.

Re:Will it help?

[DNS-and-BIND]

But why would we want to help the deplorables?

Re:Will it help?

[jeff4747]

It is also based on your dependents.

Which employers also know because they're witholding part of your paycheck to pay taxes based on your dependents.

If you add a few kids... that changes significantly.

Not really. The line doesn't move that much per child. So you need around 4 to be all that different than a single.

Re: Will it help?

[diamondmagic]

Earth to AC: Bezos doesn't actually have 11 digits in his bank account.

His "wealth" is in the form of Amazon stock, which in turn is mostly physical capital (warehouse buildings, machinery, contracts, trade secrets like their software, and the like), which in turn is used to produce things for people to buy.

Re:Will it help?

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

Are all libertarians stupid, or just you?

It doesn't matter if you tell yourself that you decided to do better for yourself. 1. Some people can't. They're not smart enough, or physically able, or what have you. 2. SOMEBODY has to do these jobs. Imagine if everyone had an advanced degree to 'better themselves'. We'd have 50 million engineers and nobody to stock our stores.

No matter the job, everyone deserves a living wage. You'd think as a libertarian, you'd be happy to get people off of welfare

Re:Will it help?

[Roger W Moore]

To suggest that it is this OR a minimum wage is false, logically, neither impacts the other.

I did not suggest this, I simply pointed out that minimum wage is a different way to tackle the same problem which might avoid some of the problems of the other suggestion. Nothing I said excludes someone coming up with other solutions. To say that the minimum wage and this are unrelated is clearly nonsense since both are intended to improve the wage of the lowest earners: one by penalizing corporations if the pay employees poorly and the other by directly preventing them from paying employees poorly.

I do not know how large companies will react to this legislation but if you do believe that this potentially motivates them to make the life of their lowest earners even worse then it would certainy be ethical to oppose it. You might disagee that this is how campies will react - and you might even be right - but just because someone sees the end result differently from you does not mean that they are not acting ethically.

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

"To say that the minimum wage and this are unrelated is clearly nonsense since both are intended to improve the wage of the lowest earners"

On the contrary, that is a motivation you read in to this. Others could see this as a way to reduce the amount of taxes paid by others for corporations abusing welfare. For those who believe in the free market the practice of using welfare to subsidize a below market wage is a significant obstacle to workers demanding a market wage.

A minimum wage would impede small startup businesses like lawn services and teenage/college operated babysitting services which don't even make enough to replace the owners day job but with enough scale could eventually do so. These types of businesses could employ teenagers saving for cars but simply couldn't exist and provide service to any significant number of people if they had to pay a high minimum wage. In fact they often can't pay the current minimum wage and operate under the table.

That said, if you believe a minimum wage is appropriate, there is no reason you can't have BOTH pieces of legislation at some point. So no, the two are separate and unrelated. Are you just a shill trying to divide people or what? Are you trying to make those who oppose a minimum wage fight against something obviously in line with their beliefs and those who support a minimum wage think they that somehow cancels out that possibility? Or are you really just so wrapped up in politics you are desperately grasping to find a way to reject a proposal you know the other side would support rather than coming together?

"I do not know how large companies will react to this legislation but if you do believe that this potentially motivates them to make the life of their lowest earners even worse then it would certainy be ethical to oppose it."

They'll react in one of the ways that makes sense for employers who suddenly can't find employees at the rates they currently pay. Corporations aren't evil just for the hell of it, they are trying to make a profit. These corporations are currently receiving a government subsidy and using it to support a below market wage, the employees won't be able to work for them at those wages without the subsidy.

Re:Will it help?

[lfourrier]

" I call it self-created because this is something the 99% can solve on their own. They don't have to spend as much of their income on things which quickly or immediately lose value."
like food and rent...

Re:Will it help?

[houghi]

In Europe they solved this by saying that if there is a clear employment situation, the person is an employee, regardless of the contract.

They are now working on laws where a contractor has only a limited time to work at a specific company. Yes, there are ways around that. If you do that for a few high paid techs, nobody will realy care.

If you try to do that with a large portion of your work force, you get in deep trouble. Just because you signed to be a slave does not make holding slaves legal.

And all this is because we have Unions. In the US you do not have Unions. At most you have guilds. The difference is that one is for the workers, the other is for the jobs. And yes, that is a huge difference.

It is not as bad in the US as it was 100 years ago in Europe when the unions started, but it is closer than you think.
So Workers of the world: Unite! (Oh, that might be a slogan that has already been taken. Sorry.)

Re: Will it help?

[Cederic]

I don't _think_ asking about dependents is illegal in the UK but it might be.

I certainly wouldn't assume that the number of dependents hasn't changed, or that there were no other sources of income. Especially if I was paying someone a shitty wage.

Re: Will it help?

[Cederic]

erm. Trade secrets aren't physical capital. They're one of the textbook examples of an intangible asset.

Amazon's physical capital is tiny. Sure, the raw numbers are scary ($49bn in property and equipment) but they own under 6% of their premises and their cash, short term receivables, investments and intangibles are worth more.

With a market capitalisation that's shifted in value by more than their physical asset values in the past week I think its' reasonable to suggest that Bezos' wealth has very little to do with physical capital and rather more to do with projected revenue and profit for the company in which he owns shares.

Re:Will it help?

[Cederic]

Unions will do fuck all.

Amazon will pay a shitty wage. A union can't stop that, they have no tools to prevent it. If they go on strike Amazon will close the warehouse and open a new one three counties away.

That doesn't need to happen often before workers refuse to go on strike.

Amazon don't have to invest in factories, plant, expensive retail premises. They have a transferable footprint and will move it away from things that damage their ability to operate profitably.

Re:Will it help?

[swillden]

And why do they have record profits? Because their labor costs are shrinking.

And why are their labor costs shrinking? A small percentage of the reduction is due to wage stagnation, but the major cause -- and this is especially true at the tech-driven giants like Amazon -- is automation. Recognition of this fact highlights a serious risk to low-wage workers: If government arbitrarily boosts labor costs, then corporations will accelerate their development and deployment of automation.

Granted that Amazon is already pushing the pace on automation, and it's unlikely that this bill would materially increase their efforts. But the same isn't true across the board. It's certain that automation will eventually destroy all of these low-skilled jobs, and dealing with this tech-pocalypse is going to be a serious challenge. How fast it happens will determine the severity of that challenge, though... which means that increasing the minimum wage or billing corporations for the social services used by their employees are dangerous. These approaches will accelerate the pace of automation -- and will do nothing to address automation-driven unemployment.

IMO, a better approach is to begin replacing our social safety net with a Universal Basic Income, funded by progressive tax increases. This is politically harder, much harder, but stands a chance of slowing automation-driven unemployment rather than accelerating it, and it provides an actual solution to the problem of what to do when those low-skilled jobs just disappear.

Re:Will it help?

[swillden]

Investments don't create wealth - they capture it. Wealth is generated by the person on the factory floor making something someone will buy, or the person providing a service that someone will buy. Everything else is just a question of how that wealth gets distributed,.

Only partially true.

It's certainly true that real value is only created through production and sales of real products, but it's not true that investors have nothing to do with it. If you want to understand the difference, you need only look at the economic output of any centrally-planned economy. Why is central planning so bad? Because no central committee can ever be smart enough and ruthless enough to efficiently allocate available resources to productive activities. Economic planning needs to allocate capital to organizations that can most efficiently and effectively use it, without regard to politics, and taking into account what consumers want and need.

This is why capitalistic economies are dramatically more productive, dynamic and healthier than centrally-planned ones: The price-driven decisions made by the ostensibly "useless" class of investors, bankers, wealth managers, etc. Those people serve an extremely important purpose. They reward enterprises that make what consumers want and do it efficiently and punish enterprises that make unnecessary stuff or do it inefficiently. They do this by controlling access to capital. Effective enterprises can easily get the cash[*] they need to expand their operations, ineffective ones get starved and die.

Note that I'm not claiming that markets are perfect, or that the moneymen don't make plenty of mistakes. Such claims are obviously ludicrous and anyone can point to counterexamples (e.g. Enron, banking bailouts, etc.). But what is unquestionable is that this system works better than any other system yet devised.

[*] Note that although we use cash to allocate resources, this doesn't mean that "money" is what's actually being allocated, or that economics is about money. Economics has nothing to do with money. Money facilitates exchanges of what the economy is really about, goods and services, by being a universal stand-in for any good or service. So what investors are really doing when they decide where to put their money is to decide where the system should allocate its real goods and services, including labor.

Re:Will it help?

[swillden]

Median wage would likely be more representative.

That is the median wage: http://www.latimes.com/busines...

Re:Will it help?

[houghi]

The thing I see is that the Unions in the US are more like Guilds.
A Union is about the workers. A guild is about the job. (e.g. writers guild)

In Belgium I can join several unions. This is regardless of my job or even if I have a job. There are specialized unions (e.g. for people working at the rail, one for pilots, another for police) but you are in no way forced to join and can join another one if you like, although for e.g. the police one, you need to be a police person.

Besides the standard union things, they will help you get unemployment benefits. I once needed that and tried to do it myself. Took 9 months to get my money. I was already working.

Next time I joined a union the day I was fired and they took care of it. Got my money directly from them and they got it from wherever.
You can join and leave as you desire.

Every company that has more that 50 employees is forced to have union representative among them, so basically every company larger than 50 people is unionized.
And even if you work at the smaller companies you can be a union member or not.

And whether you are a union member or not does not matter in how they treat you. I know in the many years in Belgium nobody ever asked me if I was union or not. The moment they ask that, I would inform the union that they asked (regardless if I am a member or not).
That was as an emplyee.

As the person who hired people, there is no reason fo me to know. I do not get any extra information out of it. The membership to me, as an employer, is useless.

Because, imagine I would hire only non-union members, the same laws would apply and there is nothing to say that they do not join the day after they start working.

If yo are a union, you will look at the bigger picture. When you are a guild, you stare at your naval.

Re:Will it help?

[Immerman]

Both are absolutely important - but today we live in a world where investment is treated far preferentially - e.g. capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than earned income, and investor-driven malfeasance is typically well protected by corporate, LLC, etc. protections, while labor malfeasance is not.

Also, they are not equally important - ask yourself, what the world would look like without major capital investment (e.g. most of human history), versus without labor (e.g. everybody starves).

Re: Will it help?

[Immerman]

That's true so long as investments are rewarded commensurate with their contribution - but that is rarely the case. What usually happens is that the investors capture the lion's share of the profits, while labor is paid as little as possible.

After all, labor is almost always paid according to the (not remotely free) market, which is to say according to the incremental value of the last employee, or alternately the cost of replacing an employee, rather than according to the actual value provided by the employee.

A similar thing happens with water - water is essential to life, and thus its inherent value is immense. But the market doesn't price it according to its inherent value, but rather at the incremental value of the of the last gallon you buy, at which point (unless its incredibly scarce) you already have plenty to drink and wash with, and more is almost worthless.

Investors are also typically very well protected against any malfeasance on their part (i.e. by the board or executives acting on their behalf), a benefit not offered to employees.

Re:Will it help?

[kaybee]

I read the text of the proposed bill, and it seems that is exactly how it would work. If you employ somebody, full time or part time, even as a contractor, you are on the hook for the entire cost of the benefits they receive that entire year, before, during, and after their employment with you.

It is actually completely ludicrous. If I'm a contractor and I have 10 jobs in a year with 10 different employers and am also receiving government assistance, then each of those 10 employers would be on the hook for 100% of my benefits.

Re:Will it help?

[The Cynical Critic]

That is, if either ever make it into law.....

... and that's really the problem. There's been politicians willing to put a stop to the out of control corporate welfare since at least the 1960s, but both parties have been too heavily in the pockets of corporations on welfare for this to ever go anywhere. With Republican control of both houses this is obviously not going anywhere even if Trump, who has blasted Amazon on multiple occasions, by some miracle decides he likes this bill and promotes it.

This bill will obviously die in committee and if by some miracle comes up for a vote it will get have both the republican and democrat establishments opposing it.

Re: Will it help?

[Immerman]

That might be how it used to work (but probably not). But today it doesn't work that way at all - 84% of stocks in the U.S. are owned by the top 10% of population - the investor class who make their money by investing rather than working (or quite likely by playing the market, which isn't quite the same thing as investing).

Only another 4% of the population owns stocks directly. And half the population doesn't even own any stocks indirectly through retirement plans, etc.

Factory workers investing their savings, directly or indirectly, are lost somewhere in that 16% of stock not owned by the 10%, and are not remotely representative of investors in general.

Re:Will it help?

[laie_techie]

I could wish on you unemployment and having to take any job you can get, thereby destroying our "let them try to get a better paying job" mantra that lolbertarians love to float around.

I have compassion though, so instead I'm just going to say your ideas and suggestions are noted, and are fucking heartless.

I'm not a Libertarian, but agree with some of their principles. I have been unemployed and based on unemployment insurance structure if I turned down an offer (no matter how ridiculous) it would mean going 2 weeks without getting a government check. Three times I told a company I wasn't interested before they could make an offer. I did end up accepting an offer that was lower than our verbal agreement during the interview. While working that job I put out feelers and got a higher paying job within a month. Take any job you can get and continue to look for a better job off to the side. You study and increase your skill set while doing an honest days work. I spent a total of 3 weeks between jobs, meaning I got 1 check. My dad taught me that the best way to help the poor is to not become poor yourself (eg. don't thin our existing resources by making yourself a recipient, too) THEN donate all you can afford to reputable charities. This does not mean don't donate anything if your not rich, just make sure you have the basic necessities for yourself and your family.

Re: Will it help?

[cbeaudry]

Your right, the numbers are low for general population holding stocks.

54% of households hold some stocks
93% of stocks owned by 20% of households
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/0...

Though I agree, there are a class of people that all they do is invest and manage investments instead of labor in a factory, I disagree that it is a bad thing.
Investors are necessary for the economy and the market. Professional investors especially.

There are leeches, however and I dont like that. Many mutual funds have too high of a MER, which sucks profit out of your investments. People should invest in index funds, which cost less.

There are factors I dont like however, like HFT (High Frequency Trading). I feel that is a leech on the markets and should just not exist. Though they pretend it creates liquidity in the market.

I think one of the important factors is state education does not do enough of a good job helping people understand how investments work, how important they are and how everyone should have investments. Its harder when you are young to invest, but it should be done. I myself am a late comer with investments beginning in my late 30s, I'm behind.

Re:Will it help?

[Immerman]

Investors certainly have their value, especially compared to a centrally planned economy (though you must admit China's hybrid approach seems to be very effective as well) The problem comes when the investors manage to capture the lion's share of the wealth being generated, while market pricing for labor severely undervalues their contribution.

In that same vein, it's also a problem when capital is given decidedly preferential treatment by the government over labor - e.g. capital gains are taxed much lower than earned income, and investors are given strong legal protections against facing repercussions for malfeasance of their company, while labor get no such protections.

Perhaps those things are actually necessary to stimulate investing, though we could debate about whether increased economic growth at the expense of socially irresponsible investing is actually a net boon to society (keeping in mind that economic growth is itself only a net boon to society if most people benefit from it). But the inevitable result of the game we've created is extreme wealth and power concentration - it needs a counterpoint to ensure that society as a whole benefits, rather than just the lucky few born into the investor class.

Re:Will it help?

[drinkypoo]

The top 1% only makes about 19% of the income. That they're able to leverage that to attain 40% of the wealth (integral of income minus expenses over time) tells you that (1) the 1% are more likely to spend their income on things that retain or grow in value, rather than disposable or transitory things like entertainment,

This is nonsense dressed up as logic. The 1% can spend orders of magnitude more than the 99% (we should actually be talking about the 90%, not the 99%, because the 9.9% of the upper middle class is doing just fine for the same reasons as the top 0.1%) on disposable things (all things are transitory, kid) and still spend a smaller percentage of their income.

That same factor is why flat taxes are inherently regressive — the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on necessities, so they wind up spending a higher percentage of their income on taxes on necessities under a flat tax plan. Then people start coming up with ways to "fix" their flat tax plan, like rebates for necessities, and then you no longer have a flat tax plan so you no longer reap any of the benefits of a flat tax plan. That's a slightly unrelated rant (you didn't even mention flat taxes) but it's illustrative of the principle.

and (2) the 99% are willing to pay exorbitant interest rates to borrow money from the 1% (that interest becomes income for the 1%).

They don't have a choice, because they need money to function in society, and the 1% has all the money and there's no one else to borrow it from.

I call it self-created because this is something the 99% can solve on their own. They don't have to spend as much of their income on things which quickly or immediately lose value. And they can put off major purchases for some years while they save up money, rather than take out a loan to buy it right now.

Ah yes, the Catholic "die now, live later" plan. Spend your whole life trying to earn for your retirement, then find out the 1% has stolen your retirement funds and you're in poverty. If you really believe this garbage, you're completely disconnected from reality.

Re:Will it help?

[drinkypoo]

Wealth is generated by the person on the factory floor making something someone will buy, or the person providing a service that someone will buy. Everything else is just a question of how that wealth gets distributed,.

Wealth is generated by a partnership between those with control of resources, and those who develop those resources. Managers and corporations really do fulfill functions in our economy, but they are being rewarded out of proportion to the significance of those functions, to the detriment of the maintenance of the overall economic system.

Re: Will it help?

[drinkypoo]

Have you considered lifting people up individually? It's popular to cry for a "living wage!", but plenty of people already make that kind of money without your help.

Wrong. If plenty of people already made that kind of money without help, then we would not need large social programs.

Perhaps it's best to raise the skills and professionalism of people making minimum wage to match the abilities of the folks who make a good wage without your help.

Jobs are going away and not everyone has the aptitude to perform the jobs which are remaining, even with assistance.

A better solution than even having a minimum wage is to have UBI funded by corporate income taxes, not taxes on corporate profit. A corporation is a legal fiction which in theory is permitted to exist because it has public value. If a corporation can't function and pay taxes at the same time, it is not in the public interest to permit it to exist at all. If it does charitable works then it should have no problem getting tax-exempt status on that basis. Like taxes on individuals, the rate would be graduated such that those corporations making the most profit (and thus deriving the most benefit from the system) are paying the most to maintain the system which permits them to exist.

Re:Will it help?

[swillden]

Taxation-based redistribution seems to be the best answer to wealth concentration. However, I should point out that I disagree that wealth concentration, per se, is a problem. The problem is when the people at the bottom don't have enough to live reasonably-good lives, not the disparity between the upper and lower ends.

Re:Will it help?

[CaptainDork]

Paint job aside, those don't answer the basic question: "Are any of your employees drawing welfare?"

Re:Will it help?

[torkus]

In theory, but in practice most people couldn't live on just the pay from walmart or similar low-income jobs without government benefits.

Plus who's to say the data will identify the employees to the company? Most states already have anti-retaliation laws on the books broadly so it's trivial to include a similar passage specific to this bill.

TBH I'd rather get free healthcare from the government than have to pay into my own (far less comprehensive) healthcare plan. I'd rather get price-guaranteed, subsidized housing that I basically can't be evicted from than try to find something vaguely affordable in my area. There are many examples where government benefits are far better than what a typical middle-class income can hope to afford. Heck, I've got "poor" friends living in far larger, nicer, and better located apartments than I could possibly afford.

Re:Will it help?

[CaptainDork]

The implementation of trade unions, particularly after WWII, were among the first indicators of company/worker split into adversarial groups.

Companies focus on the revenue stream and ignore the voice of labour.

It's Capitalism on steroids and I'm doubtful any approach to fix it will exceed.

The Capitalists are carrying the Big Stick.

Re: Will it help?

[Immerman]

It doesn't matter how important you know investing is, if you can't afford to do it. And a large percentage of people in this country are already neglecting even their own health for lack of income - and that's an investment with even greater payoffs.

Not to mention around 80% of the U.S. population has some form of debt - and paying off debt generally offers the best return on investment you can get.

Re:Will it help?

[Immerman]

If it were just wealth, I might agree. Some degree of wealth concentration is almost certainly good for society - being able to improve your lot in life through your own efforts is a powerful motivating force, probably greatly for the better of society. So long as wealth concentrates no faster than new wealth is created, a rising tide will indeed lift all boats.

Unfortunately, it's not just wealth that concentrates - power and opportunity concentrate along with it, and that's a problem for democracy. Especially so in a society like the U.S. that hasn't socialized basic "social utilities" like medical care and education. And wealth buys a greatly outsized voice in politics pretty much everywhere.

And when that happens the rate of wealth concentration tends to spiral upwards, and when wealth concentrates faster than it's generated, then the gains of the rich come at the expense of the poor and middle class. And that is an inherent problem - one that's plagued virtually every capitalist society on Earth.

It might not always be immediately obvious - I mean if median wealth has increased by 20%, and the wealth of the rich has increased by 30%, then everybody still wins, right? The problem is when that trend continues over time it means the rich can claim an ever-growing share of the power and opportunity, while drifting ever further out of touch with what life is like for normal people. And whether it's capitalism, "communism", or anything in between, that's always gone badly for the masses.

On a bit of a tangent, it's also worth noting that not all wealth is created equal - There's what you might call "core assets" like health (medical care, healthy food, etc.), real estate, education, etc. that allow you to improve your lot in life. And then there's "luxury goods" - TVs, smartphones, vacations, etc. which are basically consumables and have little to no value in improving your lot. And generally speaking, while the cost of luxury goods, as measured in percentage of median income, has been consistently falling, the cost of "core assets" has been consistently rising. The net result being that most measures of wealth inequality, which treat both classes of wealth equally, give a much rosier picture than actually exists.

Re:Will it help?

[mysidia]

It is actually completely ludicrous. If I'm a contractor and I have 10 jobs in a year with 10 different employers and am also receiving government assistance, then each of those 10 employers would be on the hook

Yeah... that is never going to fly. If you are a contractor, then it is going to cause the person hiring out the project to either background check you and set requirements to essentially ensure you have $X in assets to render you ineligible for assistance, not hire you at all, or write terms where you're not going to get paid until you earn at least enough to ensure your contract income would disqualify you ---- either way the minimum amount of work you'll have to be willing to commit to get paid is going up.

Re:Will it help?

[almitydave]

And where did the money come from to make those investments? People bought products made in previous factories, by previous laborers.

It's factories all the way down!

Re:Will it help?

[mysidia]

That'll certainly put an end to most restaurants.

Small non-chain restaurants with fewer than 500 employees will suddenly be at an advantage.

Actually... come to think of it: each franchisee is a completely separate business just licensing from the franchise a
privilege of operating with their name, branding, recipes, and suppliers, subject to conforming with their standards,
so even the local McDonalds would have fewer than total 500 employees,
so they likely wouldn't have to pay the tax based on size: even if workers get minimum wage.

Re:Will it help?

[ausekilis]

Personally, I think the best way is to set caps on compensation. Specifically, the CEO should only be able to make n times as much as their lowest-paid employee. Lets set that number to something reasonable, like 25. If Mr/Mrs CEO wants to make somewhere in the millions, then that lowest paid employee is going to be making $40k minimum. The law would have to include verbiage accounting for things like stock options and whatnot - so we do away with this "My CEO salary is $1, but I got my $100m bonus and $500m in stock options" nonsense.

The problem isn't necessarily corporate greed, but personal greed. Corporations are not money-grubbing ass-hats, the people running them are.

Re:Will it help?

[jpaine619]

Oh for fuck's sake....

Now teenagers need a living wage.... The left has gone full-blown delusional...

I suppose 13 year old girls who babysit on the weekends need a living wage along with full medical, dental, & vision too, right?

You are an asshole.

Re:Will it help?

[jpaine619]

Yeah, it doesn't work like that. Some (most?) states have very specific rules on what constitutes an independent contractor.

Re:Will it help?

[presidenteloco]

That only works in a scenario in which unemployment is temporary. That's not going to be the case going forward, due to automation.

Re:Will it help?

[Roger W Moore]

Others could see this as a way to reduce the amount of taxes paid by others for corporations abusing welfare.

...which would also apply to both solutions being discussed here. The two policies might not be identical but their effects are very similar as you inadvertently pointed out.

...there is no reason you can't have BOTH pieces of legislation at some point. So no, the two are separate and unrelated.

This is false logic: just because you can implement both policies does not mean they are unrelated. Generally, governments implement policies to solve perceived problems. If you implement one policy and it solves the problem then there is no need to implement the other unless it offers additional benefits or unless the problem is so big it needs multiple policies to fix it.

Or are you really just so wrapped up in politics you are desperately grasping to find a way to reject a proposal you know the other side would support rather than coming together?

What sides? I'm unamerican and was simply making an observation that the proposed policy had some potentially very serious flaws that an alternative, like minimum wage, does not. You are the one who reacted rather extremely to any even vague suggestion about minimum wage. Sorry if I stepped on your political toes by suggesting this but I was being logical, not political and my only motivation was to point out a potential flaw and offer a possibly better alternative - I am a scientist, not a politician so perhaps the different approach caught you off-guard. I have no idea why this would divide people any more than the original proposal since in both cases I am sure some will like it and others will not but then US politics is so screwed up that I utterly fail to understand it.

Re:Will it help?

[stikves]

Unfortunately that would not work.

They would just get rid of low pay employees, and hire them into a contracting subsidiary. The CEO will keep their job, and the employees will lose their benefits.

As long as they have access to sufficient pool of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyist, they will get around those kind of restrictions.

Re:Will it help?

[shaitand]

"This is false logic: just because you can implement both policies does not mean they are unrelated."

One can have an indirect impact on another that is not the same thing as a direct relationship of the sort you are discussing. This program would be solving a tax avoidance and welfare abuse problem and is not directly related to wages. A minimum wage is a highly contentious partisian issue that is intended to solve a different problem than this bill. This bill is to close a loophole which allows corporations to subsidize their operations with government welfare programs at tax payer expense. A minimum wage is an effort directly intended to impact the take home pay of workers.

"I'm unamerican and was simply making an observation that the proposed policy had some potentially very serious flaws"

I did speak previously to the issues you raise but I might have pounced on your argument a bit harshly. The political situation in the United States at the point is extremely highly polarized, even dangerously so. Studies have shown that individuals access different regions of the brain (related to memory, rather than reasoning) once an individual perceives an issue as being partisan (remember, there are basically only two parties in the US). The minimum wage is a very contentious partisan issue in the US and I don't want to see reason shut off and people arguing for or against because of which "side" they perceive the bill as benefiting instead of the actual merits of the policy.

A bill like this should simply close a loophole if implemented properly without disclosing to companies which of their employees receive benefits and the amounts. There are fiscal conservatives who believe the reason wages are too low is that welfare programs are obstructing the free market by allowing the needs of staff to be addressed at lower rates which alleviates the market pressures which would force companies to raise them. If this does not work you've still reduced tax avoidance and freed up tax funds and added weight to your argument that the market will not solve this problem. That strengthens your argument for a minimum wage increase. Instead of arguing you will have proved it out by actually trying their solution and will have this policy on the books to cover the abuse situations for employees exempted from the minimum wage. If on the hand this works as you've suggested and a minimum wage increase is no longer needed... well a minimum wage increase is no longer needed and you've solved that problem as well which is a win for everyone.

"Generally, governments implement policies to solve perceived problems. If you implement one policy and it solves the problem then there is no need to implement the other unless it offers additional benefits or unless the problem is so big it needs multiple policies to fix it."

Right, this solves a corporate tax abuse problem not the problem that workers fail to earn enough. These employees have a low enough income they pay no net taxes and in some cases actually turn a profit at tax time due to tax credits. Currently, everyone who does earn enough to pay taxes foots the bill for the public benefits that make their health and well being possible. This shifts the tax bill to the employer who is actually profiting from the health and well being of these workers. This also sets a precedent that is sorely needed for many of these policies targeted at large corporate abuse, excluding small businesses without punishing them incorporating for liability protection.

I suspect we will see some kind of boost in wages as a side-effect. Likely this will start a chain reaction that causes an increase of prices on retail goods indexed for the tracking of inflation. That will have all sorts of positive effects in the US. The artificial reduction of the prices of many of these goods in order to prevent accurate inflation tracking. How can we have sane conversations if we are artificially reducing the costs of the items we use to track cost of living and inflation?

The effect of this

[scourfish]

Would be that companies slow down hiring people with families, the people who probably need work the most, for unskilled labor. Yes, I know you can't discriminate against family status, but employers can find a way regardless.

Sure let's single out all successful companies

[Camel Pilot]

Then we will be left with mediocre organizations and everybody will have less... Yeah!

Re:Sure let's single out all successful companies

[_Sharp'r_]

It's a really simple and well-understood principle. If you raise taxes on something (increase the cost of it), you will get less people buying that something.

If you massively raise taxes on employing poor people, then the expected result is that way less poor people will be employed. Apparently these idiots are unable to consider that not being able to get a job will help get them off welfare sooner. More likely, they prefer more people staying on welfare, as it increases their political base.

Goddamit, I like the ...

[CaptainDork]

... balls this guy has.

He's a nutbar, and harmless, but very entertaining.

definitely works

[bezpredel6]

thats very nice - pas the law - government wants to increase benefits - government increases benefits - no need to budget, companies pay for it yep, totally works. Next thing is the news: arms race between companies screening out anyone eligible for any benefits and regulators taking decades to amend labor laws. Oh well.

Who are they exploiting?

[Locke2005]

Amazon sorting centers pay $12.50/hr to anybody who can show up and pass a drug screen, no skills required, no resume asked for. How is that exploitation? Yes, the problem is that you work at Amazon's convenience, not your own, but I don't see them as taking advantage of anyone -- nobody has a gun to their head making them work there.

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on the city. In Austin, Texas Amazon pays their warehouse employees $10.75/hour and it is the fastest growing city in the United States and has been for over five years. Rent averages, for a multi-unit apartment, $650-$850 per person, not including utilities.

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[misexistentialist]

It's below the cost of living, so the gap needs to be made up with welfare. I guess you could say that is "gaming the system" while the real exploitation is the government printing money to cut wages so that people work for less money than they expect

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[guruevi]

Depends on the city. Where I live, even McDonalds pays their workers $15-20/h and their managers could make up to $25/h. Not because of cost of living (it's very cheap here) but because of lack of workers, partially due to the welfare state. If you pay people $10/h for doing nothing, there is not much incentive to get up in the morning and spend $10 in gas to make $12.50 for 4 hours.

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[Sumus Semper Una]

Ok, I've seen this same argument too many times to keep quiet anymore. "Nobody is forcing you to work there" is a terrible litmus test for worker exploitation! There is truly no employer abuse that cannot be dismissed by saying "well, nobody is forcing you to work there."

Being harassed at work? Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Mandatory overtime without pay? Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Forced to promote the employer on your personal social media account or you're blacklisted? Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Constantly repeated workplace accidents due to safety hazards employer refuses to address? Nobody is forcing you to work there.
Required to publicly support your employer's political stance? Nobody is forcing you to work there.

You can't draw the line at literal slave labor and say anything less than that is perfectly fine!

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[Uberbah]

Right. Which means they live packed like sardines in a small apartment and hope they don't get evicted for overoccupancy (shitty), they have long commutes from cheaper housing (shitty and expensive) or they're paying rent to some slumlord for a shithole (also shitty).

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[dog77]

It seems like cost of living problem is a much better place to focus efforts than tinkering with wage incentives. We know we should be able to create more efficient, nicer, affordable living spaces.

A simple example, is when you live with many other people you trust, there is much you can share and benefit from each other. Examples: Take turns watching the kids. Efficiently, cook a large meal for everyone. Share appliances and utility bills. Pool wages towards owning a large living space versus renting many small ones. Treat our elderly as assets rather than liabilities; like watching the kids, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Besides, the wage thingy has become such a political hot button, and really how much do we expect to actually make things better by this tinkering?

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[dog77]

I am not sure if this is what Republicans mean by family values or what Democrats mean by "it takes a village to raise a child", but having a support group around you makes all the difference. If we really want to improve these hard luck situations we should understand why we don't support each other anymore. I suspect we do this more in small towns and is one of the reasons small towns tend to vote Republican and not to vote for Democrats and their government support systems.

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[Uberbah]

Support groups help enormously - but it can get you kicked out of an apartment if you have too many people. Say the landlord has a stipulation in the lease that a two bedroom apartment can have a maximum of four tenants, not counting guests. You and your spouse make room for your recently jobless daughter and your four grandkids while the son-in-law takes an out of state job to pay the bills. Too many people, so you're living in fear that the landlord will notice them leaving for school in the morning every day, etc etc.

Re:Who are they exploiting?

[strikethree]

Yes, the problem is that you work at Amazon's convenience, not your own, but I don't see them as taking advantage of anyone -- nobody has a gun to their head making them work there.

The gun to their head is their stomach. Gotta eat. There are no "good" jobs for these people, so it is Amazon, something like Amazon, or fucking starving.

Beware of being arrogant as you might find yourself in their shoes one day.

Bernie got paid!

[Anonymous Coward]

So... it looked like he was going to beat Hillary in the primary, if the primary wasn't rigged. Hillary had $800 million in campaign funds at the time.
The DNC rigged the primary, superdelegates, giving Hillary moderation questions beforehand, coordinating with Boston newspapers to time stories to hurt Bernie and such. He had quite a case, with tons of evidence that he legit would have won primary if it were fair.

Suddenly Hillary wins, Bernie is rich, and he isn't complaining about the rigged primary.
Before primary he is worth $600,000. The week he dropped out he bought a beach house for $650,000 cash. Also his wife is under investigation for corruption as well.
Sure it is an FEC violation, but so is funneling money through a law firm to Fusion GPS and a British Spy (foreign agent) to affect an election, and she hasn't been charged for that either.

One true, one false

[Okian Warrior]

Two axiomatic problems with Socialism

1. Those in power that advocate socialism never live by he very rules they set for everyone else.

2. Eventually you run out of other people's money.

Number 1 is correct. The old Russian joke of a man standing on the corner expounding communism:

Man on soapbox: "Communism is great! If I have two cars, I give you one. If I have two houses, I give you one"
Man in the audience: "What about shirts? If you have two shirts, will you give me one"
Man on soapbox: "No"
Man in audience: "Why?"
Man on soapbox: "Because I have two shirts."

In the case of Bernie, he lives quite the hypocritical life for a socialist.

But onto point two:

It is straightforward to fund UBI, so long as you do it gradually (ie - not all at once).

Set aside $1 million for each UBI awarded, invested in index funds. Give out $25,000 annually from that fund, and it will still grow faster than inflation in perpetuity. Hold a lottery to pass out the UBI benefits.

Each $1 billion investment in UBI would remove 1,000 people from the workforce, which over time would greatly improve the working conditions for the remaining workers.

Over the course of a few decades, this would transition a large portion of the workforce over to UBI, while not relying on "other peoples' money".

For comparison, current welfare costs about $492 billion and serves 39 million people. Allocating $100 billion to a UBI would reduce that number by 100,000 people each year and fund them in perpetuity, reducing that particular taxpayer burden by 1/3 of one percent each year until it is no longer needed. That 1/3 of a percent reduction actually grows over time, as the $100 billion/100,000 people represents an ever larger percent of the people involved.

As opposed to costing $492 billion in taxes each year for the same number of people - in perpetuity.

Re:Why TAX?

[omnichad]

How does TAXING the company help with giving them $2 more.

Because if they give them a higher wage and the employees don't need benefits, the tax goes away. This is more like having a variable national minimum wage - that varies by cost of living (Since if you don't make enough to survive in your area, you are eligible for benefits).

The law of unintended consequences

[PackMan97]

Two candidates for the same job, they have equivalent experiences and qualifications for the job. Candidate one is a single worker with no children. Candidate two is a single mom with four children. The wage is a "living wage" of $15/hr. Guess which candidate is going to generate a ton of under the Sander's tax plan? That's right, the single mom with four kids. All of a sudden, it's in a companies best interest to find out if you have kids, to find out the size of your family, to find out if you are going to generate any tax liability because of who you are. When you start to tax companies because of the people they hire, they will change the way they hire the people. The end result will ALWAYS hurt those the law intended to help.

Re:The law of unintended consequences

[PackMan97]

It is against the law to ask those questions in an interview and a single mom of four would be a fool to voluntarily mention her situation.

Re:The law of unintended consequences

[jeff4747]

Candidate one is a single worker with no children. Candidate two is a single mom with four children. The wage is a "living wage" of $15/hr. Guess which candidate is going to generate a ton of under the Sander's tax plan? That's right, the single mom with four kids.

That's OK, the Mom can retire with the settlement from the illegal employment discrimination you just described.

Re:The law of unintended consequences

[viperidaenz]

They don't need to ask, Target knows their shoppers are pregnant before they tell their own family.

Re:The law of unintended consequences

[kaybee]

Yes, that's absolutely correct. Too bad you are overqualified to be a congressman.

Sanders

[fyngyrz]

This is a ploy to extract donations from his base for his next reelection run. And that's all it is.

I hope it works. AFAIC, Bernie Sanders would make (and would have made) a much better president than either Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump. Ideally, both houses of congress would change hands as well, so he could actually get some things done. It's well past time for a pendulum swing, IMHO.

My cynical side says that people, despite recognizing that congress as a whole is dysfunctional, will still vote the same congress-critters right back in, just as they have been doing pretty much most of the time. Round and round we go.

Re:Sanders

[gslavik]

Well, what if the wrong lizards get in?

Re: Sanders

[Anonymous Coward]

you were part of thr crowd that said trump was absolutely unelectable, weren't you? don't underestimate your detachment from reality.

Re:Sanders

[Archangel Michael]

Bernie Sanders would make (and would have made) a much better president than either Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump.

Bernie would be disastrous as President, worse than the other two, and I can't stand either of them either.

The idea that Bernie, a failed everything before politics guy, can run anything is laughable. His only contribution to society is the butt of jokes about "The 1%", and showing how corrupt Hillary actually is.

Re:Sanders

[Dragonslicer]

The democrat party should lean in his direction, but letting the far left of the party drive the bus is a terrible idea.

Sanders is hardly "far left". Single-payer health care and higher tax rates on the upper class are mainstream left-wing ideas. "Far left" would be actual Communist ideas like the general population (as represented by the government) taking ownership of factories, research labs, etc. There are people in the US who support those ideas, but it's such a small minority that they are completely negligible when it comes to elections.

If you think that you're a moderate liberal and that Sanders is far left, then you're really a centrist.

Re:Sanders

[Herkum01]

I think this election cycle people are becoming more open to voting to non-incumbent candidates. There appears to be significant interest and activity in pushing new candidates with drastically different ideas. While not a landslide of new people, it is enough to give people confidence the status quo is no longer acceptable.

Re: Sanders

[fyngyrz]

How'd that turn out?

Very poorly. The man's an idiot.

Re: Sanders

[Midnight Thunder]

How'd that turn out?

Very poorly. The man's an idiot.

As much as I dislike the guy, he got elected, has a strong following and is successfully screwing people over. He may be considered an idiot, but he is doing okay in spite of it.

If he gets in for a second term, then he isn’t the idiot we should be worrying about. Well we should be, but he’ll just be the symptom.

Re:Sanders

[Anonymous Coward]

I promise you that the party elites have already figured it out. In fact, they're counting on it to establish a permanent underclass that will keep voting for free stuff.

Re:Sanders

[DNS-and-BIND]

Bernie Sanders took his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War, when Russia was 1000 times the threat it is today. That's not just far left, that's far far far left.

Re:Sanders

[KlomDark]

No, I think he was representing you with that slur.

Re: Sanders

[Archangel Michael]

Trump is a symptom of the idiocy of the Kardashian Generation. Between him and Clinton, it shows that the average American can only pick psychopathic ego driven demons.

Re:Sanders

[swillden]

I'm still waiting for the left to figure out that you can have mass immigration or you can have nice things like universal health care but you certainly can't have both.

I'm not a leftist, but this is obviously wrong. Just provide the nice things only to citizens, while taxing immigrants and citizens alike. Then make the path to citizenship sufficiently difficult to keep the system in balance. There will be the small issue of the fact that children of immigrants are citizens, but history shows that the children of immigrants are more economically productive than the children of citizens so this is a non-problem; they'll pull their own weight.

This leaves open the question of whether you can afford the nice things even for all citizens, but it's trivial to separate that question from the question of immigration.

Re:Sanders

[liquid_schwartz]

I'm still waiting for the left to figure out that you can have mass immigration or you can have nice things like universal health care but you certainly can't have both.

I'm not a leftist, but this is obviously wrong. Just provide the nice things only to citizens, while taxing immigrants and citizens alike. Then make the path to citizenship sufficiently difficult to keep the system in balance. There will be the small issue of the fact that children of immigrants are citizens, but history shows that the children of immigrants are more economically productive than the children of citizens so this is a non-problem; they'll pull their own weight.

This leaves open the question of whether you can afford the nice things even for all citizens, but it's trivial to separate that question from the question of immigration.

How am I obviously wrong? I don't think you grasp the magnitude of the number of anchor babies (ie children of illegals born here who thus become citizens). It's far more than a small issue, it numbers in the millions. History shows that *legal immigrants* are more productive, not illegal immigrants children. That's a distinction that seems lost on many, yourself included. Much like skilled legal immigrants are a net gain while unskilled immigrants, as illegals typically are, are a net loss. Trying to have other nice things like college fees reduced or actually funding the retirement systems is impossible with the anchors dragging you down.

You claim I'm wrong, prove it. Show me the math that magically allows mass immigration in addition to having a nice country with things like universal health care or fully funded retirements for more than just police.

Re:Sanders

[swillden]

I'm still waiting for the left to figure out that you can have mass immigration or you can have nice things like universal health care but you certainly can't have both.

I'm not a leftist, but this is obviously wrong. Just provide the nice things only to citizens, while taxing immigrants and citizens alike. Then make the path to citizenship sufficiently difficult to keep the system in balance. There will be the small issue of the fact that children of immigrants are citizens, but history shows that the children of immigrants are more economically productive than the children of citizens so this is a non-problem; they'll pull their own weight.

This leaves open the question of whether you can afford the nice things even for all citizens, but it's trivial to separate that question from the question of immigration.

How am I obviously wrong? I don't think you grasp the magnitude of the number of anchor babies (ie children of illegals born here who thus become citizens). It's far more than a small issue, it numbers in the millions. History shows that *legal immigrants* are more productive, not illegal immigrants children.

I'm not talking about illegal immigrants. I'm talking about legal immigrants.

Don't hire poor people act

[roccomaglio]

I think the danger here is this could be the "Don't hire poor people act". If they are punished for hiring people receiving government benefits, then they won't hire them. So this act might just wind up preventing people from being able to take jobs that allow them to get off government benefits.

Re:Don't hire poor people act

[jeff4747]

Turning down a large pool of workers means reducing supply of labor, while demand is still present - it's not like the shelves stock themselves (at least not yet).

What happens when you reduce the supply of something while not reducing the demand? The price goes up.

So, if employers start refusing to hire poor people, their available pool of workers becomes near zero, massively increasing the wages the remaining workers can demand, driving costs up....making the poor desirable employees....hey look! problem gone.

Re:Don't hire poor people act

[liquid_schwartz]

I think the danger here is this could be the "Don't hire poor people act". If they are punished for hiring people receiving government benefits, then they won't hire them. So this act might just wind up preventing people from being able to take jobs that allow them to get off government benefits.

So then we'll have new laws and quotas to force you to hire people who will cause extra taxes. At what point does this spaghetti code of laws end?

Re:Don't hire poor people act

[ooloorie]

So, if employers start refusing to hire poor people, their available pool of workers becomes near zero, massively increasing the wages the remaining workers can demand, driving costs up....making the poor desirable employees....hey look! problem gone.

If labor costs go up, prices go up and/or employers go out of business. Either way, it's not Amazon or Bezos that pays for this, it's Americans as a whole. And the effect is that we are paying for government assistance twice: once through taxes, and a second time through higher prices.

Re:Don't hire poor people act

[jeff4747]

If labor costs go up, prices go up and/or employers go out of business

Only if they continue to refuse the "cheaper" labor pool.

Either way, it's not Amazon or Bezos that pays for this, it's Americans as a whole

Who, exactly, do you think pays for our various safety net programs?

And the effect is that we are paying for government assistance twice: once through taxes, and a second time through higher prices.

Math isn't your strong suit, is it? If the money is coming from taxes on these businesses (and they raise prices), it isn't coming from taxes on the rest of us.

Also, raising prices is one option. There are others. Maybe the CEO doesn't need an 8th mansion.

There's also raising wages, which increases spending when you're talking about the poverty end of the wage distribution. When you're Wal-Mart and your shoppers are literally running out of money the 4th week of every month, those higher wages mean higher sales 'cause your customers can actually buy stuff from you when they have money.

And before you discount that, that's what's actually happened in places that passed minimum wage hikes. The increased sales from people having money to spend largely made up for the increased labor costs.

Re:Don't hire poor people act

[ooloorie]

Math isn't your strong suit, is it? If the money is coming from taxes on these businesses (and they raise prices), it isn't coming from taxes on the rest of us.

The workers still get the government benefits, which we taxpayers pay for under existing taxes. In addition, under the proposal, there is a new tax that Amazon pays, which isn't going to be offset by spending anywhere. That's why we end up paying twice.

Also, raising prices is one option. There are others. Maybe the CEO doesn't need an 8th mansion.

What you think that CEO "needs" doesn't matter. That CEO, like any investor or professional, is going to go where he gets the most money for his labor. If you tax him too much, he's going to change business, move out of state, move out of country, or retire.

And before you discount that, that's what's actually happened in places that passed minimum wage hikes. The increased sales from people having money to spend largely made up for the increased labor costs.

And you don't get what that actually means. It doesn't mean that a person who used to earn $8/h now earns $15/h. What it means is that a person who used to earn $8/h became unemployable and probably goes fully on welfare while someone who is worth $15/h got hired to replace them. And the increased demand for more skilled labor drives up prices throughout the economy.

And the worst part is: the reason why we have so many people who can't command a decent salary is because they leave public schools illiterate, innumerate, and unskilled. So, first government fails to educate these people, and then it makes them entirely unemployable through minimum wage laws, and skilled and educated workers are supposed to fit the bill for it all. That's progress Democrat-style.

This would be really bad. Look at the real issue.

[GregMmm]

Let's not overlook the fact a senator is having an issue with a single company (Amazon). Bernie, you're not the CEO of the company (nor could he handle it), so don't tell them how to run their business. Last time I checked you can't keep your budget in order.

Here is the real issue:
The push for businesses to be able to regulate their own pay and finances. Who says these people qualify for these programs listed above? The government. So, you know what you're seen? Huge expansions in the people who qualify for the program. Now, since the government can't keep paying for it and the programs are failing (everyone wants free stuff, buy them votes) they do the usual next step to blame the businesses. It's their fault! They don't pay enough! So let's force them to pay more. But, this isn't just for Amazon, please look at all who would be snared by this.

Example of this:
Seattle city council tried the "Amazon Tax" earlier this year. Again, a socialist pushed this as they need to pay their fair share. Ignore the 40k's job they pay in Seattle which are mostly development jobs, not low paying jobs. The tax was a per head cost per year for businesses at a certain number of employees (sound familiar?) What they didn't think was how it impacted others besides Amazon. Dick's drive in burgers was a prime example. A main stay for many years, they work on a razors edge with profits. By the way, tax them suckers like Amazon, and don't forget, this place provides benefits and college tuition funding for employees who flip burgers. That will show that business.

The more we regulate and control business, the harder and more costly it is to run. And since government can't run itself correct, why would they know what to do best. Right, they don't.

Great!

[SCVonSteroids]

So they'll just uproot and move to a country with a "friendlier" business environment. No?
Depends on the bottom line I guess. They won't ever take a cut from anything without their employees or the public paying for it somehow.

Re:Great!

[jeff4747]

I eagerly await your plan to staff a Wal-Mart from another country.

Re:Not the solution

[DMJC]

Except this doesn't just hit Amazon, this hits Walmart as well. It's hilarious to see Americans having a complete bitch fit over common sense regulations. If these laws pass the companies will NOT go overseas, just like when unions came in in Australia work and capital didn't magically fly overseas. Where is it going to go? The whole point of Trump's tarriffs is if Capital wants to leave America, that's fine. But good luck reimporting your cheap Asian goods into America. It'll be taxed on entry to make it cost as much as the American local goods and btw, America is still approximately the largest consumer market in the world, with China only just beginning to equal it in size now. That's a hell of a lot of money being left on the table by any company that doesn't want to play by America's rules. Trump's biggest mistake on trade has been to not get the Europeans in on the China bashing action.

Re:Not the solution

[DRJlaw]

You can't penalize one company and ignore all the others.

You're right, you can't. You can, per TFS, have it "apply to corporations with 500 or more employees." Just like the Family and Medical Leave Act applies to private employers with 50 or more employees.

You fell for the catchy abbreviation and didn't even read the summary, much less the first sentence of TFA ("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.").

walmart can just fake franchise like mcd's

[Joe_Dragon]

walmart can just fake franchise like mcd's to get out of this!

Hello, unintended consequences

[chispito]

So what will happen? The same thing that happens with the high paying jobs: they will contract those warehouse positions out and let the contracting companies work out the details.

Re:Hello, unintended consequences

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL, yeah good luck with that. I prefer not to have my taxes go up because some fucking ass-hole who makes billions of dollars does not want to pay taxes. Fuck off and die.

Re: lol

[jd]

It would break the PHP on some news sites.

Bernie Sanders: actually MAGA

[mschaffer]

This is a good start. Let's just hope that the robots that replace these workers are manufactured domestically.

Re:Not the solution

[null etc.]

using taxes we collect, particularly from the very rich to fund it

Hahahahah! Good thing the very rich don't have lawyers, loopholes, and lobbyists to help them avoid paying taxes.

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[tepples]

If you want kids, wait until you can afford them.

Say someone can afford to raise a child until she loses her job and becomes un- or underemployed. Though she used to be able to afford to raise a child, she no longer can. Should the child still be forced into the underfunded, often abusive foster care system? Or what third option did you have in mind? Should prospective parents instead be required to deposit a quarter of a million dollars cash up front before procreating? That would take a toll on health outcomes, as waiting until 40 to have a child diminishes the gene pool quality.

Close, but going to miss the mark...

[ChrisKnight]

Amazon pays its employees pretty well. I've known a few, and I've been hit up my Amazon recruiters. The people known as 'Amazon workers' are not Amazon employees. They are temps, managed by a third party. Amazon isn't the direct employer. Amazon has done some amazing legal gymnastics to keep from being these people's employer, and in doing so will likely have shielded themselves from the effects of this bill.

Reality

[fyngyrz]

you were part of thr[sic] crowd that said trump was absolutely unelectable, weren't you?

In fact, I was. However, I didn't count on the Russians so successfully manipulating the public, or the EC going against a distinct majority of voters, or Comey coming out with his bullshit right before the election. Inasmuch as Clinton actually won the majority of the voters over anyway, I'm not too displeased with my original assumption; just with the other factors. Trump wasn't so much "elected" as he was inflicted upon the country.

After two years with Trump as president, observing his actual performance in office, I rather expect his term, or that of whatever Republican replaces him if Trump's term is cut short, to end rather abruptly and with a distinct pendulum swing next election. Congress is a different story. Local interests, or at least the perception of them, seem to always take priority over national interests, and that affects how people perceive their congress-critters. That's kept us from having a competent, functional congress for many years now.

I confess it's been absolutely bewildering to me to watch people complain about how the laws favor the rich at the same time they keep electing and re-electing the rich to legislative positions. People are clearly less bright than I would like to imagine.

don't underestimate your detachment from reality.

Yes, perhaps that's a flaw of mine in this regard. But I can still hope. :)

Re:Reality

[sexconker]

Clinton actually won the majority of the voters over anyway

No she didn't. Further, that's not a thing to win.

Those damned lizards

[fyngyrz]

Well, what if the wrong lizards get in?

Then the country will continue to devolve under incompetent, toxic leadership. It's not like we aren't used to it.

Data Point

[ElizabethGreene]

The average pay at an Amazon warehouse for a fulfillment worker is $12.35 per hour. Working full time that is more than $24k/year.

WIC eligibility is up to 185% of the federal poverty level, $30,451 for a family of two.

SNAP eligibility is up to 130% of the federal poverty level $21,398 for a family of two.

The federal poverty level numbers are
$12,140 for individuals
$16,460 for a family of 2
$20,780 for a family of 3
$25,100 for a family of 4
$29,420 for a family of 5
$33,740 for a family of 6
in 2018

Re:Data Point

[ElizabethGreene]

At the fulfillment center in Murfreesboro Tennessee 40 hours is available for the asking. I don't have data for any other locations.

+1, -1, oh well.

[fyngyrz]

He might make a better decision maker, but he is unelectable to higher office.

First, Sanders almost beat Clinton in the primaries, despite the fact that the Democratic party went out of its way to pooh-pooh his candidacy.

Second, Clinton won the popular vote.

And a lot of people voted for Trump because Clinton's I-am-the-establishment-yet-again across so much of her platform and personal behavior was just too much for them, even though that required intentional overlooking of Trumps many, many severe flaws... or batshit levels of ignorance.

So I think you're probably wrong about Sander's electability. He's right in there; and your vote for someone else would be cancelled out by my vote for him, so there's that. And I'm at least somewhat right-leaning, though completely disgusted with the current crop of so-called conservatives.

Re:+1, -1, oh well.

[sexconker]

First, Sanders almost beat Clinton in the primaries, despite the fact that the Democratic party went out of its way to pooh-pooh his candidacy.

No, he didn't. That's like saying The Last Jedi was almost a good movie. It's just so fucking wrong it makes you look insane. Bernie was railroaded and had zero chance at anything. Clinton was preordained by the DNC and the media and the existing administration.

Second, Clinton won the popular vote.

That's like you winning the race of eating the most frozen lasagna while sitting naked on the couch at 4 AM. You can't "win" a race no one else is running.

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[omnichad]

Your $250,000 figure and $14,750 was based on a middle-class income. For lower income, the figure comes closer to $9,700 per year. Somehow housing is a full 29% of the middle-class figure, but on the lower end poor people don't move when they have a child. Somehow transportation for a 2 year old is a full $200 more per year than no child. These figures are pulled from thin air, but loosely tied to consumer pricing. Children cost money, but these numbers are padded out well beyond any real-world budget scenario.

You're going to have to accept that the continuance of humanity actually requires reproduction and that you're talking about some sort of elitist eugenics.

huh?

[cascadingstylesheet]

A public spat between Amazon Sen. Bernie Sanders over workers' wages

Now Amazon bought Bernie Sanders too??

Re:huh?

[GonzoPhysicist]

no,it means Bernie is a warrior princess like Diana or Xena

And the armed forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many THOUSANDS of which receive snap benefits?

Largest employer in The USA
Largest chunk of the budget of the government of the USA

And, many of the active duty service people in the different branches of the military receive welfare.

Re:And the armed forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, you're actually right.
https://www.military.com/daily...

Re:And the armed forces?

[WindBourne]

yeah. It is long past time for CONgress to do their GD jobs and bring up minimum wage, along with military pay.

And if you happen to nail Walmart, all the better.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/

Re:Not the solution

[drinkypoo]

I like Bernie's politics in general, but this is not the solution. This is just being a political wingnut 101.

You're not paying attention. Sanders is introducing this bill, written in this way, because Trump has been railing against Bezos. If the Rethuglicans don't support this bill, it makes it look like they don't support the president. If they do support this bill, then it makes it look like they support Sanders. Either way, Republicans lose.

Re:Depends

[omnichad]

Presuming it was birth-without-adequate-means-of support, it'd be perfectly fine with me - more than fine - if she could go get them back if she could then demonstrate an ability to support them.

Children are people, not a toy possession for the rich. Maybe you can lose your home in bankruptcy, but not your family. That is just horrible.

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[omnichad]

These jobs are meant for HS kids and college students to learn responsibility, job skills, and provide a little *extra* money, not a "living wage".

So supporting exploiting children is "better"?

Consequences of Predatory Taxes

[AnalogDiehard]

I'm not a fan of Amazon or WalMart exploiting the public welfare system, but Sanders' proposition parallels those that have never worked. History shows that when predatory taxes are levied on corporations, they can:

- pass those taxes to the consumer
- reduce or eliminate benefits to consumers
- push those jobs out of the country to evade the reach of the law
- replace human labor with robots
- reduce the employee ranks to minimize the impact
- implement "corporate inversion" to reorganize the corporation in a foreign country to evade taxes

Will this push the targeted companies to abandon their abuse of the public welfare systems and provide a good honest employer-paid health insurance to their employees? Highly doubtful.

None of these benefit the country at all. Once again, unintended consequences rears its ugly head.

Re:Consequences of Predatory Taxes

[Krishnoid]

In this case, it would be even easier -- Amazon's CEO could just change his last name.

Re:Consequences of Predatory Taxes

[viperidaenz]

The low paid workers in these big companies are warehouse workers at Amazon and checkout operators at Target. Can't really shift those jobs overseas.
If they shift the costs on to the consumer, that's increasing their prices compared to smaller companies.
Replacing humans with robots isn't going too well, and Amazon have been trying to do this in their warehouses for years.
If they could get away with hiring fewer staff, why haven't they done it already?

You make it sound like this is pointless

[rsilvergun]

but it's anything but. Bernie is a United States Senator for one thing. Aside from SCOTUS and POTUS he's one of the most powerful men on earth. Folks don't seem to realize just how much power a US Senator wields.

As for his yelling, it's anything but cloud yelling. He has a very real goal and the thing he's yelling at (Bezos and the rest of the billionaires living high off my tax dollars) are very real themselves. I don't spend $150 billion a year on some puffy air in the sky.

Sorry to be so pedantic, but we shouldn't dismiss an honest attempt to address a real problem for the sake of a cheap laugh.

Re:You make it sound like this is pointless

[jwymanm]

Laughter is the best medicine for life. If you can't laugh at something you or yourself are attempting to do, you're most probably missing part of the picture (or your temporal lobe). If you support Sanders efforts you are missing out on the picture that working for Amazon is free will. If you work there you likely can't find another place to work and if you hurt Amazon just for that fact they will likely respond by eliminating those positions instead of paying them more.

CONgress is the real one to blame here

[WindBourne]

Going after bernie because bezo pays minimum wage is total BS.
CONgress needs to raise minimum wage to the point where it is a livable wage in each state/location.
Seriously, in America, our states are larger than most nations. As such, it is time to have a minimum wage that works in the nation and and will mean that we can limit gov subsidies to employees.

Re:CONgress is the real one to blame here

[MtnDeusExMachina]

Amazon pays a lot more than minimum wage to starting workers.

Re:CONgress is the real one to blame here

[WindBourne]

These are $10-$16 /hr. with an average of ~$12.50. Living wage in Seattle is 13.88. Minimum wage is 11.50. IOW, they are about $1 / hr above minimum and about $1.30 under living wage.

He is

[rsilvergun]

the proposed law applies to any business with more than 200 employees. It levies a tax when those employees qualify for food stamps and other forms of government assistance. It's not even meant as a punishment. It's meant to take back the billions they've been getting in subsidies. Their employees couldn't function without that help and they couldn't function without their employees. Time for them to pay up.

The problem is $12.50 an hour

[rsilvergun]

won't get you an appartment in most places. It won't buy you enough food. And $12.50 is the _average_. They don't pay that in places like Alabama where that would be a decent wage.

As for who they're exploiting, well, it's you and me. It's anybody who makes enough money to pay taxes. Amazon doesn't pay enough for their workers to have food, shelter and healthcare. But workers need those things to be productive. So they get the government to pay for those things. And by "government" I mean you and me. I think Bernie made all that very, very clear.

Re:Bernie Sanders hell bent on eliminating more jo

[oh_my_080980980]

False premise ass-hole. Amazon is passing the buck to the tax payer. But hey I guess you like paying $150 billion a year so companies like Amazon don't have to pay taxes.

Warren Buffet already answered your question

[rsilvergun]

I forget where, so forgive the paraphrasing and lack of citation, but it boiled down to: "Just because you tax me doesn't mean I'm going to stop making money, so go ahead and tax me". He also pointed out that he pays less taxes than his $70k/yr secretary.

Re:Warren Buffet already answered your question

[sarren1901]

Think it was Warren Buffet that said that about his secretary.

Re:Warren Buffet already answered your question

[shaitand]

Yes, no doubt he uses the buffet loophole. He just cashes out what he spends which is only a few million of the billions a year of gain, probably as dividends, then makes a donation to "charity" probably a church which turns around and provides entertainment to his kids in the form of stock and so never realizes gains on it and only a charitable contribution that eliminates most of the tiny fraction of his gains he pays taxes on. The final result after that and other tax loopholes is paying taxes at the lowest rate on a few million dollars less 30% of a charity hammer. He'd probably end up with an effective rate of 9% or so but that is 9% of what he actually extracted, the other several billions dollars is left to compound interest tax free the next year. The cost to society to make him all that money and support his workers is undoubtedly higher than what he actually pays. Hell, just the cost for infrastructure use and security staff probably cost more than Buffet taxes.

Re: Warren Buffet already answered your question

[orlanz]

Mr Buffet is worth 80 Billion dollars. If he made 1% in profits a year and his effective tax was 1%. That would still be 8 million in taxes paid!!

I doubt his security costs us more than double the EPA head's equivalent.

Re: Warren Buffet already answered your question

[shaitand]

Do you have any idea how much wealth 80 Billion dollars actually is? He makes more than 1% in profits and he doesn't pay an effective rate of 1% of that but 80 billion dollars worth of wealth costs an enormous amount of public money to maintain, including the clean air and water required by him a portion of that required by everyone employed by the companies where that wealth rests. But if he did pay your 1% $8 million dollars wouldn't even fund the police and emergency services that cover his personal use and tangible assets let alone all of that.

"Mar 20, 2017 - Last year, Warren Buffett reported about $11.6 million in gross income on his tax return, and paid $1.85 million in federal income taxes."

He reported to the news seeing $21 billion in net wealth growth due to tax cuts alone. $11.6 million is a joke as a starting figure, so it doesn't really matter what percent of it he paid.

Re: Warren Buffet already answered your question

[orlanz]

So are you saying he didn't pay ANY sales taxes on his purchases/expenditures? If you had 1 million in revenues and same in costs; the tax man got some of his share already.

Re: Warren Buffet already answered your question

[shaitand]

If he did it would only have been on a subset of the $11.6 million he cashed out. And just the gains on the $21 billion in dodged taxes will likely amount to more than he'll cash out for the rest of his life but the cost to society of supporting that wealth will remain. The people who actually generate that wealth, including those in the top 1% by income, give a portion of what they generate to Warren Buffet. Maybe you think he deserves it because of his success in identifying and investing in well run companies (thereby growing the overall economy) and maybe not but either way he should be paying the taxes on the share he gets.

Aside from that taxes discourage behavior. If you tax income you discourage income but income isn't a behavior we want to discourage as a society, hoarding wealth is. That is the big joke, the top 5% pay 60% of the taxes but that is largely because the top 0.1% dodge theirs while holding the lion share of that 40% of wealth.

Re:Warren Buffet already answered your question

[jpaine619]

He's a cunt and he lied by omission.

He doesn't take a paycheck.. He is taxed at the capital gains rate, because that's how he gets his money.

Wanna jack up the capital gains tax rate? Good luck getting people to do short term investments in anything...

Re: Warren Buffet already answered your question

[MtnDeusExMachina]

There is no "cost to society of supporting that wealth". It's just a bunch of stock certificates.

Re:Warren Buffet already answered your question

[slipped_bit]

You're confusing "pays less taxes" with "pays a lower effective tax rate." He pays north of $6M in taxes whereas his secretary pays about $13k, but due to the difference in incomes, his effective tax rate is lower than hers.

You are correct in that he has gone on record as stating he thinks he doesn't pay enough tax, and that he should be taxed at a higher rate. Interestingly, though, he doesn't put his money where his mouth is: he could cut an extra check and send it to the government just like that little girl did a few years ago who emptied her piggy bank and sent the money to the US Treasury to help pay down the national debt, yet he doesn't.

(I don't mean to sound negative about him; I admire what he's done and live by many of the same principles, such as living in a house that costs well below my means, and other economically-wise decisions.)

Yep, said it before and I'll say it again

[rsilvergun]

you're not free so long as anyone controls your access to food, shelter and medicine. Until then you're a few meals, a rent check or a bottle of pills away from doing whatever they say.

Re:Yep, said it before and I'll say it again

[drinkypoo]

you're not free so long as anyone controls your access to food, shelter and medicine. Until then you're a few meals, a rent check or a bottle of pills away from doing whatever they say.

Unless, of course, you have access to weapons. Then there's a chance that you'll go full Rambo on their ass. Remember the guillotine.

Re:Yep, said it before and I'll say it again

[imrahilj]

As far as I can see, there is no way to escape someone else controlling your access to food, shelter, and medicine. It's not like you can produce all of those things entirely independently. The question then is about the method of control, not whether or not the control exists.

Re:Yep, said it before and I'll say it again

[tkotz]

Is this an argument for or against SNAP, Section 8 housing, medicaid?
There is really no way around this unless you happen to be a carpenter/chemist/doctor/farmer with universally recognized sovereignty. Otherwise you answer to someone, a "they" as it were. I'd argue you are fairly free as long as you have some ability to select who the "they" you have to deal with is, and you can negotiate on fairly even footing. If this law decreases the employability of people on these programs then it arguable makes them less free as their pool of "they" is reduced to only the government. A theoretical person on food stamps and medicaid who was working to afford rent in neighborhood of their choosing might find they don't have that option anymore, but it is always tough to determine secondary impacts. Also it seems like companies shouldn't be able to profit off the government like that. On the other other hand it may make jobs that no one would be willing to take/pay for economically viable.

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[fyngyrz]

Your $250,000 figure and $14,750 was based on a middle-class income. For lower income, the figure comes closer to $9,700 per year.

I don't see that you've made a salient point against my position. You're just saying it's okay to push one out and then deprive the kid of an average upbringing. I'm saying it's not. That's certainly a position you can take, but in and of itself it does nothing to discredit mine. That would take arguments on the specifics.

Somehow transportation for a 2 year old is a full $200 more per year than no child.

I take it you've never had a kid or you would know that it's entirely normal to drive them, and you drive yourself, all kinds of places you would otherwise not need to go at pretty much all ages, though the specifics of where vary with age. The doctor. The dentist. Shopping, over and over, because the little buggers constantly outgrow their clothes (when they aren't destroying them.) (pre-)(nursery-)(high-)(sometimes trade/college-)School. Sports. Plays. etc. All the variations of this cost fuel and puts wear on the vehicle. As does the kid itself. Presuming the cost is only $200/yr, even year 2, is incredibly lowball unless you're raising your kid in a shed out back. And there's the I don't have a vehicle case (city living) where the cost moves to taxis, busses, subways, etc. The kid still needs specific material support, and it's not going to all happen at home if we're talking about raising a reasonably normal child.

You're going to have to accept that the continuance of humanity actually requires reproduction

Oh, I certainly accept that. I just don't think there's much merit in the continuance of humanity simply for the sake of doing so. I recognize that's not the popular stance, but it's definitely my stance.

you're talking about some sort of elitist eugenics.

No, WRT gene manipulation, I'm saying that letting kids be born stupid if you can prevent it, and/or WRT education then providing them with an insufficient one, is mistreating them horribly. Do you disagree?

The other problem

[rsilvergun]

is some of those folks get desperate, work hard and move up the social ladder. We celebrate when that happens but I don't think we fully realize what it means. Those folks move on to better jobs. Like the ones /.ers have now. They end up competing with us and our wages drop. Then we end up doing the same and it cycles up until it hits the ruling class (where it stops, since with rare exceptions you're born into the ruling class)

I'm saying that even if you don't care what happens to those rock bottom folks from a human standpoint you still have a damn good reason to take care of them. They do not go quietly into that good night.

Also as a US Senator

[rsilvergun]

he's one of the poorest. And when you consider how long he's been in politics it's frankly amazing how little he has. He's held one of the most powerful and prestigious positions of the most powerful nation on earth and he's barely a millionaire.

Most states have explicit laws

[rsilvergun]

against discriminating on the basis of parenthood, so good luck with that. Bernie's been in the Senate for decades and has teams of staff members. You don't think maybe he thought of that?

That's a great idea

[rsilvergun]

I'm sure Amazon will have no trouble filling those positions with independently wealthy, heiresses and the Nouveau riche. I look forward to seeing Bill Gates, Warrent Buffet and (dare I dream?) Donald Trump packing the socks and chewing gum I buy off Amazon.

Re:That's a great idea

[ooloorie]

I'm sure Amazon will have no trouble filling those positions with independently wealthy

No, they'll either go out of business or pass on the costs to consumers.

If it's the latter, I'll end up paying twice for SNAP, once through taxes, and a second time through higher prices.

Too ad-hominem

[Krishnoid]

How about Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out, an Act Restricting Subsidies. Better!

Equal Protection

[Tjp($)pjT]

Make sure the guidelines follow the constitutional equal protection under the law. Let’s see. How would I cope with extremely large corporations being extremely taxed? I’d create a parent company that holds a plethora of companies that don’t meet the uber tax for extremely large companies. Even if that’s one per wharehouse. It’s all cost benefit related.

Re:So much for libertarians

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarian solution: end the assistance programs.

Problem solved! Taxpayer dollars saved! Government size reduced! No need to interfere with private business!

You don't really understand Libertarianism, do you?

Are you volunteering to work?

[KalvinB]

UBI doesn't work because it exists in this mythical world where automation isn't already factored into the costs of goods and wages. Automation does not create "extra" money that can be passed out. The costs of goods are reduced and wages increase as productivity increases.

So are you going to put in extra hours away from friends, family and hobbies so that money can be taken from you and given to someone else who doesn't feel like putting in effort to that whole work thing?

Re:Are you volunteering to work?

[presidenteloco]

I'm postulating scenario 0; an automation trajectory toward nearly full automation of production and related economic activity.
You say: "The costs of goods are reduced and wages increase as productivity increases."
But in scenario 0, only a smattering of people's wages/profits increase as productivity increases. The few remaining workers, and the owners.
Everyone else's (the vast majority's) share of the productivity increase goes to 0.
So the question is whether the cost of goods goes to 0 as fast as the 99%'s income goes to 0.
If not, we have an extreme social problem.

In scenario 0, on the assumption that the cost of goods does not go to 0 because there are still inputs and (automated) processes to be paid for, automation then DOES create extra money that can be passed out. Well, it's not extra money, it's the same net-profit money that was earned by production before, but now it's being earned without labor costs.

If you don't pass out a good chunk of the money earned by automated-produced goods, you get a bi-polar economy, call it the 1% and 99% exaggerated to extremes. And the money-and-goods-and-services economy tailors itself to only produce luxury goods and services for the 1%; those who can still pay. Everyone else scrabbles and/or starves in a gang-led subsistence black-market economy.

A little confused.

[fish_in_the_c]

There seems to be some real conflicts in the laws here.
How is it possible , someone who is earning minimum wage would be below the poverty level and qualify for SNAP?
    I guess that is part of Senator Sanders point here.

It seems however , contradictory to add an additional tax to a company as basically a penalty for following the law. If it is unfair to pay wages that low , it would be better to simply raise minimum wage. The fact you can't get enough support to do that should tell you maybe you are thinking about it wrong.

I hope there is also a clause in the law that prevents a company from firing someone when they apply for SNAP or I would expect amazon to write it into their employment contract that , while working for them , you may not apply.

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[omnichad]

You're just saying it's okay to push one out and then deprive the kid of an average upbringing. I'm saying it's not.

That actually sounds like your argument. You said the solution was to deprive them of their upbringing (i.e. "ideally would have the children taken from them") rather than have society do something to correct it (help the child with their upbringing).

I'm saying that letting kids be born stupid if you can prevent it, and/or WRT education then providing them with an insufficient one, is mistreating them horribly. Do you disagree?

What makes them born stupid? And K-12 education is already socialized - I'm not sure what you're getting at.

It's for the wingnuts plus Trump

[Uberbah]

Conservatives have been propagandized to be skeptical of the minimum wage - but that doesn't mean they want to pay more in taxes so more-money-than-god corporations like Amazon can make even more quarterly profits. So, you might not get Rand Paul's vote to raise the minimum wage, but you might get it to tax. And Trump has been bashing Amazon for some time now, so it might get some grudging support from the MAGA hat set.

Re:It's for the wingnuts plus Trump

[ooloorie]

Conservatives have been propagandized to be skeptical of the minimum wage

Leftists have been propagandized to think that they can force businesses to pay workers more than they are worth to the business. Elementary logic ought to tell you that that is impossible. But, of course, elementary logic is what leftists lack (not to mention a lack of morality, decency, and compassion).

And Trump has been bashing Amazon for some time now, so it might get some grudging support from the MAGA hat set.

So you're saying that a high minimum wage is a rational choice because Trump might support a tax on Amazon?

Re:It's for the wingnuts plus Trump

[Uberbah]

Leftists have been propagandized to think that they can force businesses to pay workers more than they are worth to the business. Elementary logic ought to tell you that that is impossible. But, of course, elementary logic is what leftists lack (not to mention a lack of morality, decency, and compassion).

Speaking of lacking competence in remedial logic, what workers are paid has little to nothing to do with how much they are worth to the business, and its stupid to claim otherwise when the company is taking 80% or more of their output. Companies pay their workers as little as possible, unless those workers are in a strong negotiating position (powerful union, pro athletes, extremely limited labor pool like heart transplant surgeons, etc).

I know having your wingnut merit badge means shaving 50 points off your IQ, so I'll speak slowly and use small words for an example. A friend of mine used to work for a company that would wire new office buildings for telephones. Company would charge $110 per hour for the wiring, which....I'll give you a second to think about this....means by definition my friend was worth that much per hour for the contractor. He got $18.

So you're saying that a high minimum wage is a rational choice because Trump might support a tax on Amazon?

The point was simple enough to understand the first time. Do you really like paying more in taxes so more-money-than-God corporations can enjoy even more profits? Let me guess....you're one of the people who gave to the gofundme for Kyle Jenner because you "don't want to live in a world where Kylie Jenner doesn't have a billion dollars". And when you watched that old South Park episode on copyright infringement, you actually teared up when Lars Ulrich had to wait a few months to get his gold-plated shark pool for his mansion, and when Britney Spears had settle for a Gulfstream III, instead of a Gulfstream IV.

Re:It's for the wingnuts plus Trump

[ooloorie]

Companies pay their workers as little as possible,

Yes, we call that a free market.

Company would charge $110 per hour for the wiring, which....I'll give you a second to think about this....means by definition my friend was worth that much per hour for the contractor. He got $18.

No, it means that the company's work was worth that much to the customer. If your friend thought his labor by itself was worth $110, he could have simply gone into business for himself. But the simple fact is that the customer mostly paid for know-how, coordination, insurance, support, and other contributions from the company, while the labor your friend supplied was actually just a minor input.

Do you really like paying more in taxes so more-money-than-God corporations can enjoy even more profits?

Not at all: I think we should eliminate welfare and minimum wage.

Facile libertarian reasoning

[Uberbah]

That's right, the single mom with four kids. All of a sudden, it's in a companies best interest to find out if you have kids, to find out the size of your family, to find out if you are going to generate any tax liability because of who you are. When you start to tax companies because of the people they hire, they will change the way they hire the people.

If Amazon rules out anyone with families or health issues, that will drastically reduce the size of their available labor pool. Which will force them to raise wages to fill positions.

Tomato, tomahtoe.

The end result will ALWAYS hurt those the law intended to help.

Libertarian dogma, but like all religious fanaticism, it has little or no relation to reality.

I see 100s of 499 employee subsidiaries that just

[pguyton]

I see 100s of 499 employee subsidiaries that just exist to bypass this law ~ similar to PACs

Re:MOD UP!

[liquid_schwartz]

You're both retarded faggots, not only would that be hiring discrimination (black-letter law) but it would be OBVIOUS and lead to a class action. You're both fucking idiots defending laissez faire retardation you can't let go of.

It would lead to all of the above, so now we're down to additional problems plus the lawyers get a payday. That has to be the worst of all worlds.

Lawsuit in 3, 2, 1

[rsilvergun]

defacto discrimination is the same thing as actual discrimination. You don't get to use dog whistles to hide from anti-discrimination laws. It's one of the things that makes the laws controversial. They're actually enforced, so we as a nation can't pretend they don't exist and just go about our business.

Re:Bernie Sanders hell bent on eliminating more jo

[jrl]

Surely you misunderstood what I wrote? I'm simply saying that if an item costs more than your perceived value derived from that item, you might opt to not purchase that item.

Now substitute item for labor costs, and you for a company. In the model proposed by Sanders, the cost of hiring or allowing certain part time workers to remain on staff may push the total cost to employ that person past the value generated. If that happens, the company may simply opt to not hire that person.

This is not speculation, this is simply rational.

Isn't this redundant?

[lamer01]

Make the minimum wage be SNAP/Section 8 Eligibility Income divided by average annual hours worked. No need to complicate things with yet another tax. Basically the minimum wage should be enough to pull people above the thresholds that qualify you for government assistance and EVERYONE should be eligible for minimum wage.

Makes me wonder how âoeprogressiveâ WA l

[melted]

Makes me wonder how âoeprogressiveâ WA lawmakers will vote on this one. On the one hand theyâ(TM)re basically communists at this point. On the other, Bezos and Amazon employees are part of the reason why WA votes for them in the first place. A delicate balance indeed.

Not Enough

[theshowmecanuck]

Should be 200%. Food stamps/banks really only provide subsistence stop gaps. They need to encourage better than that.

Success comes with a price

[BeemanIT]

Well, the lesson is, when your successful everyone wants your money. The underpaid employees should just go somewhere else to work. A company without a workforce will collapse. Employees who say they just can't quit for reasons A, B, and C are just giving excuses as to why they're not applying elsewhere.

Re:Bernie Sanders hell bent on eliminating more jo

[_Sharp'r_]

Right, because Amazon owes all those specific welfare recipients a job and is required to pay them more than they're worth, regardless of how much their work contributes to the company's bottom line or not, right? That's you're false premise. Amazon isn't responsible for the life situation of the people who apply to work there, those people are.

The expected result of this bill would be for large employers to stop hiring welfare recipients at all, making their lives worse and significantly reducing their ability to live and to eventually get off welfare.

No sir, it would not.

[rsilvergun]

Amazon like most modern companies makes heavy use of contractors for their lowest wage positions. That's how they hit that $12.50/hr average they quoted.

Well, as it stands none of this has a chance

[rsilvergun]

of passing. The Dems might just barely eke out a victory in the House but they've got no chance in the Senate (baring some amazing bizzaro level sea change in politics). Plus Trump would Veto both bills. And finally there are "blue dog" or "corporate" Dems like Pelosi & Schumer who would vote against these bills.

If you want this stuff to change you'd need to get folks to register Democrat, vote in their primary and then put pro-worker anti-corporatist politicians in office. But America's a country of Wedge Issues and Voter Suppression. I'm not sure any of that's possible. This is why single payer healthcare is polling in the low 70s and still has no chance of passing...

Mod Parent Up

[rsilvergun]

+5 not enough. Also /. seems to have stopped doling out mod points to me. I've got good karma though, so go figure.

The phrase is

[rsilvergun]

"good enough for government work". I've never once heard it reference Unions and I grew up in Buffalo, NY.

Unions are a victim of a nonstop propaganda campaign waged by corporate media. Folks have had it pounded into their skull that they're the problem, not the solution. I'm hoping that folks can start breaking free from the likes of MSNBC, CNN & Fox News and strike out more on their own.

Actually they're centerist ideas

[rsilvergun]

single payer & higher taxes for wealthy both poll in the Mid to high 70s. The only reason they seem to be "left" ideas is that so few people vote. Less than 20% of Americans are Republicans and 52% of those support single payer, for example.

America uses a combination of Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression to make sure only the 'right' people vote. I'm embarrassed to say this about my country but a lot of folks agree with that, even if they don't agree that the current crop of selected voters is the ones they'd want in charge. I've suggested multiple times that we make voting mandatory (an idea I got from Obama) so that we could end Voter Suppression but folks hate the idea. They don't want "idiots" voting.

Re:Actually they're centerist ideas

[Dragonslicer]

single payer & higher taxes for wealthy both poll in the Mid to high 70s. The only reason they seem to be "left" ideas is that so few people vote. Less than 20% of Americans are Republicans and 52% of those support single payer, for example.

Being popular doesn't make an idea centrist, it just means a majority of people support a "left" idea. There's nothing wrong with that; there are plenty of "left" and "right" ideas that are popular.

I do agree that low voter turnout is a problem. I'm not sure what the best solution is, though. Sure, having candidates that don't suck would work, but I'm not holding out much hope. Making it easier to vote would definitely help; more poll locations so that people don't have to wait in line for hours and/or required time off on election days so that people don't have to lose money (or get fired) just to vote would be good. I'm just not sure if mandatory voting (and fines for not voting) would be effective enough.

I can't see any problem with this bill

[shaitand]

At least not on principle, who knows what hides in the details but the concept itself should be solid regardless of what party you support.

Re:I can't see any problem with this bill

[MtnDeusExMachina]

I agree. Although it would cost Amazon some money, it would sweep away nearly all of Amazon's competition.

It's a bad name for a bill

[Jeremi]

Without having an opinion on the bill's contents one way or another, the name is bad.

Including a person's name in its title (yes, even as a backronym, wink-wink-nudge-nudge) is getting too close to trying to pass a Bill of Attainder, which is forbidden by the US Constitution. Even if Sanders is only skirting the edge here, he should know better.

If Sanders wants to make companies more responsible for their employees' well-being, great. But explicitly singling out a particular company is a dumb thing to do.

it would apply to corporations with 500 or more?

[Shompol]

...it would apply to corporations with 500 or more employees

Time to delegate warehousing duty to subcontractors!

Re:Irresponsible spawning

[Cederic]

You're just saying it's okay to push one out and then deprive the kid of an average upbringing

I certainly think that's acceptable. I mean, it already happens to half the kids out there.

I'm saying it's not

Then you don't understand averages. Most people want to do more for their kids but children are very resilient. Compare 99% of the world's population to American kids; you're setting a stupidly high bar here.

Shopping, over and over, because the little buggers constantly outgrow their clothes

Oh noes! Not the three fucking times a year my mother had to take me shopping.

Trust me, it was the other 200 times that she forced me to come shopping because she was going anyway that annoyed me.

(pre-)(nursery-)(high-)(sometimes trade/college-)School. Sports. Plays. etc.

You don't appear to live in the real world. I didn't get most of that shit as a child, it was't available or my parents couldn't afford it. One the rare occasions it did happen we'd take public transport, or walk. My parents didn't even own a car until I was 12.

Presuming the cost is only $200/yr, even year 2, is incredibly lowball unless you're raising your kid in a shed out back.

I think my parents spent $200 transporting me (even allowing for inflation) between the ages of around 2 and 7. That's in total, not per year.

And there's the I don't have a vehicle case (city living) where the cost moves to taxis, busses, subways, etc. The kid still needs specific material support, and it's not going to all happen at home

Doctor - walking distance
Shops - walking distance
Pharmacy - walking distance
Dentist - walking distance
Nursery/school/library/gym/skate park/countryside/ducks to feed/mothers groups/coffee mornings/religious establishments/everything you need to raise a child - walking distance

I don't live in a big city, I live in a village and oddly enough everything a parent needs is in walking distance. Go to a city and you merely get additional choices.

His salient point is that you're quoting the amount an affluent person will spend on a child, that children can be raised far more cheaply, and that negates your entire fucking point to start with. Raising children isn't cheap but it isn't expensive either and your assumptions are flawed.

great idea!

[ooloorie]

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.

I think this is a great idea. The predictable consequence will be that Amazon will ask workers "are you receiving any govenrment benefits" and not hire them if they do.

Re:Bernie Sanders hell bent on eliminating more jo

[ooloorie]

Amazon is passing the buck to the tax payer

False premise. Amazon wouldn't be paying these workers more if they didn't receive these government payments.

Lots of implementation difficulties

[kaybee]

Whether you love it or hate it, Bernie's proposal shows his complete ignorance in this area. I mean the proposal is juvenile. Just read it. Here are just a few of the problems I can see.

1) You hire somebody, he shows up on the first day of work high on drugs, or just refuses to work, or whatever. You fire him, pay him for his time. You are now on the hook for the full cost of all government assistance he received that year. Before, during, and after his employment with you.

2) An independent contractor does a few small jobs for say 10 different companies, but then hits on hard times. Each of those 10 companies are responsible for paying 100% of his government assistance for that year. In other words, the government will collect 10 times the money that they spent on this person.

3) In order to file their taxes, all big companies will have to wait until the government calculates all government assistance received by all workers that you employed last year, and all employees that you employed as contractors, potentially through contracting companies. Normally taxes are filed 3-6 months after end of fiscal year. How long will it take the government to figure out these numbers?

4) I am a contracting firm with >500 employees. I hire you and contract you out to Amazon. You are on public assistance. Do I owe 100% of that cost, does Amazon owe 100% of that cost, or do we both owe it?

Amazon? How about the biggest employer: Walmart?

[whitroth]

I really want this tax. Walmart is vastly larger, and even more scum than Amazon.

It's documented *FACT* that Walmart tells their employees how to apply for food stamps and welfare.

Why the *hell* should taxpayers be subsidizing sociopathically greedy multinational company owners?

Amazon paying no taxes

[XXongo]

Does Amazon pay taxes? Here's some links from left, right, and center-tending media:
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-s/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-not-paying-taxes-trump-bezos-2018-4
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/amazon-earned-5-6b-in-2017-but-paid-no-federal-taxes
https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law/
https://splinternews.com/amazon-made-5-6-billion-in-profits-last-year-and-repor-1823329221

Re:UBI a complete fantasy...

[presidenteloco]

The measures you suggest may work as a stopgap, but the real issue is that people other than the intellectual/skills/managerial elite will be outcompeted by the automation, and two people sharing a job are as easily outcompeted as one person is.

1) The actual number of job categories for people will go down.
2) The human work remaining within remaining jobs will be devalued as automation takes over part of the responsibility/work done in those categories.
As an extreme example, if medical diagnostic AI (and new bio-testing sensors) start statistically outperforming the average doctor's/specialist's diagnosis (this is already happening with some radiology analysis for tumour detection/classification), then AI will start doing some of the heavy lifting of diagnosis, and doctors will practice ALONGSIDE those AIs, or would risk malpractice lawsuits for not using statistically more reliable method.
- So then what is the percentage devaluation of the doctors' work? OR reduction of number of doctors?
- If for example a nurse-practicioner can do a higher percentage of primary-care diagnosis or even some specialist-diagnosis when assisted by the AI?

Entitled Brats claiming to be victims

[rhyous]

Too many poeple have an unhealthy sense of entitlement.
We also have too many people who claim to be victims and don't take personal responsibility.
If the job a perosn does is only worth $10 an hour, that person is only entitled to $10 an hour.
If that is the only job that person can get, the problem is likely that person and/or that person's life decisions.
There are exceptions to deal with. People with severe mental disabilities like Down Syndrome, etc.
But if you drink and do drugs till you are 40 and look around and say: I need a living wage, it just doesn't sit well.
When you drop out of high school, get no education, live in your parents' basement till your late thirties, then say: I need a living wage, it doesn't sit well.

But instead of taking responsibility for yourselves, blame the government and big organizations. Yet continue to spend your entire paycheck, zero savings or investing, on Beer and Amazon prime as you badmouth both on social media while drinking Beer and watching a movie.

Sure Amazon pays a lot of warehouse workers low wages. They also pay thousands of Software Developers very high wages, often over six figures.
If a subset of Amazon workers need better pay, they need to either get another job, which might require spending free time learning a new skill instead of watching Prime.

Work in an Amazon factory for low wages? Spend every lunch hour for four years learning software engineering, then move up in (or out of) the company.

Take responsibility for yourself. Sure there are times to strike. This isn't one of them.

Re:Not the solution

[MtnDeusExMachina]

And since Amazon is more efficient than Wal-Mart, and Amazon pays more to entry level workers, Wal-Mart will go out of business and leave Amazon with most of the market.