Jeff Bezos, America's Richest Man, Gets A Bill Named For Him: Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies

Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (BEZOS for short) is the Senate version of a bill Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna introduced to Congress yesterday. It's not popular with plutocrats and oligarchs. One of their newspapers, the Wall Street Journal phrased their coverage as "an unusual public spat between Amazon.com Inc. and Sen. Bernie Sanders over workers’ wages... Sanders specifically targeted Amazon founder and leader Jeff Bezos, contrasting his vast personal wealth with the compensation of the companies' lowest-paid workers." It goes well beyond Bezos-- and Bernie.

First off, the House version, doesn't specifically target Jeff Bezos. Ro Khanna's bill-- co-sponsored by progressives Nanette Barragán (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Gwen Moore (D-WI), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD)-- is called The Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protection Act and like Bernie's Senate version would make large corporations, not the taxpayer, pay for the costs of federal programs that low-wage employees turn to in order to make ends meet, such as nutrition or housing assistance. Khanna: "Companies are short-changing their employees by not paying a living wage. These companies are creating a drain on the economy by underpaying workers and should be responsible for covering the cost of the programs their employees rely on to make ends meet. It is my hope that this bill will further incentivize these companies to pay their employees a living wage without cutting their hours."

When large corporations underpay their employees, it hurts working families who are living paycheck to paycheck. It also places a burden on the taxpayer, who pay for the benefits and services low-wage workers need to help put food on the table or ease housing costs. In fact, low wages cost taxpayers $152.8 billion per year according to a 2015 University of California, Berkeley Labor Center study.

The reasoning behind the Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protection Act is simple: An employee making minimum wage bagging groceries should not have to rely on nutrition assistance to put food on the table for his or her family. And taxpayers should not have to subsidize low-wage workers so wealthy corporations can get richer.

The Corporate Responsibility and Taxpayer Protection Act would make large corporations pay their fair share. By levying a direct fee equal to the public assistance each corporation’s employees are eligible to receive, the legislation is designed to compel all employers to pay their employees fairly with the goal that ultimately no company would be taxed for underpaying their employees.

Covered public assistance programs in the bill include:

• Medicaid
• Section 8 Housing
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
• National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs (administered under Child Nutrition Act)

Barbara Lee didn't mince words: "Every American should have the basics: affordable housing and a livable wage. It is unconscionable that CEOs siphon off billions to line their own pockets while their employees struggle to make ends meet" and called the bill "a bridge over troubled water for Americans in need by strengthening essential programs for struggling families. Jamie Raskin got to the same conclusion from a different path: "It's very simple. The public should not be in the business of subsidizing giant corporations when they take the low road and pay inadequate compensation to their workers. It's not fair to the taxpayers and it's not fair to the vast majority of high-road businesses which pay their employees a fair day's wage for a fair day's work."

These were some of Bernie's remarks about the bill on introduction:

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the 3 wealthiest people in America own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent and when 52 percent of all new income goes to the top one percent, the American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America.

Let me give you just a few examples of what we are talking about.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is the wealthiest person on earth.

Today, his net worth is $168 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.]

Since the beginning of this year, his wealth has increased by about $260 million-- every single day.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bezos continues to pay many thousands of his Amazon employees wages that are so low that they must rely on food stamps, Medicaid or public housing in order to survive. Programs that are financed by middle class taxpayers.

According to a recent report from the New Food Economy, one out of three Amazon workers in Arizona and 2,400 in Pennsylvania and Ohio need food stamps in order to feed their families.

...In April, Amazon reported that half of its workforce makes less than $28,500 a year-- about $13.67 an hour.

Even that figure is misleading because it doesn’t include an estimated 40% of Amazon’s workforce who are employed through temporary staffing firms.

...But let me be clear: This discussion is not just about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.

The Walton family of Walmart is the wealthiest family in the country with a net worth of nearly $175 billion.

This one family owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

Meanwhile, just like Amazon, Walmart pays its workers’ wages that are so inadequate that many of them are forced to depend upon public assistance programs in order to survive at a cost to taxpayers of some $6.2 billion each and every year.

The fast food industry is another major recipient of corporate welfare.

While the co-owner of Burger King, Jorge Paulo Lemann, has a net worth of more than $25 billion, low wages at this fast-food chain cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $356 million a year.

And Burger King is not alone.

McDonald’s workers are actually encouraged to sign up for government assistance-- meaning the company fully acknowledges that it pays its employees wages that are non- livable.

Shockingly, 52 percent of all fast food workers rely on public assistance programs to make ends meet.

...The working families and middle class of this country should not have to subsidize the wealthiest people in the United States of America. That’s absurd. That’s what a rigged economy is all about.

The fact is that if employers in this country simply paid workers a living wage taxpayers would save about $150 billion a year on federal assistance programs and millions of workers would be able to live in dignity and security.

That is why we are proposing legislation to demand that Mr. Bezos, the Walton family of Walmart and other billionaires get off of welfare and start paying their workers a living wage.

Specifically, this bill would establish a 100 percent tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost.

Our legislation gives large, profitable employers a choice: Pay workers a living wage or pay for the public assistance programs their low-wage employees are forced to depend upon.

Let us be very clear: We believe that the government has a moral responsibility to provide for the vulnerable-- the children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled.

But we do not believe that taxpayers should have to expend huge sums of money subsidizing profitable corporations owned by some of the wealthiest people in this country.

Amazon's p.r. department, sounding like a more educated and slicker version of Trump, denied everything.