I listen to conservative radio a lot so you don't have to, and the things you'll hear is just astounding. This week, William, a producer on the Dale Jackson show on WVNN, asserted that Amazon is raising the price of it's Prime membership because it's workers are making $30k per year, and this is why raising the minimum wage is dumb.
So look, the guy here, William, he’s a young guy, think he’s younger than me, and I don’t necessarily fault him for thinking that because that’s what you’re taught! That’s what you’re taught, especially if you work for a conservative talk radio station, and if you’ve never challenged yourself or had others challenge you, it’s not surprising that you would have the same opinions as everyone else in your echo chamber!
We're taught, basically, anytime there is a problem, the reason for that problem is the little people. Wages going down? It’s the immigrants. Someone gets hurt at work? She could’ve been safer. Education is bad? It’s probably the teachers.
When prices go up? It’s the workers just ROLLING in their… 30,000 a year?
When you say it like that I think you can start to see how absurd it is. But let’s investigate further.
How much profits did Amazon make last year? $33.4 billion.
That's money leftover after everything is paid for.
If you just gave half of that to the workers in the form of a wage increase, you could give every single Amazon employee in the world - all 1.3 million of them! - a 6 dollar an hour raise.
That's before the prime price increase too!
What about the 30 million dollars they spent fighting the union campaign in Bessemer last year alone!! Those union busters made hundreds an hour, not 15! But of course, they aren’t blamed on the Dale Jackson Show. It’s the workers.
Companies are raising prices after record profits! And THEN blaming it on higher wages! It’s insane! To bring it back to the first clip we played in this segment, they’re pissing down everyone’s back and the folks on Dale Jackson’s show are telling us it’s raining!
Listen to the full discussion:
