A rising variety of Amazon and gig financial system workers earn so little that they depend on public help to put meals on the desk and acquire well being protection, a Government Accountability Office study launched Wednesday discovered.
The variety of Amazon workers receiving meals stamps and Medicaid in September almost tripled for the reason that GAO’s previous report in 2020, in accordance to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested each analyses. Nearly 12,350 Amazon staffers had been enrolled in meals stamps and almost 11,350 had been coated by Medicaid within the states GAO examined.
Meanwhile, rideshare and meals supply firms are now among the many prime employers of recipients within the two security web packages in a number of states, which was not the case 5 years earlier. Those firms embody Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Grubhub and Instacart.
GAO analyzed knowledge from 11 states the place almost one-fifth of Americans reside. It discovered that Walmart was one of many prime employers of workers receiving these advantages in all of the states examined, because it was in 2020. Meanwhile, the variety of FedEx staffers on Medicaid greater than tripled and on meals stamps almost double over the interval.
“No one who works for a company making billions in profits should be living in poverty,” Sanders, who has lengthy referred to as out main companies for not paying their workforce a residing wage, mentioned in a press release.
Amazon mentioned the conclusions drawn from the report are incorrect, arguing that its pay scale is among the many finest within the trade and that its common, full-time workers have entry to medical health insurance on their first day for $5 every week for particular person protection.
“Eligibility for both SNAP and Medicaid is based on total household income and family size, not individual wages or benefits – so employers that offer part-time options for those who want them, like we do, are likely to have more people who are eligible,” Rachael Lighty, an Amazon spokesperson, mentioned in a press release.
One of the nation’s largest employers, Amazon has expanded its workforce for the reason that Covid-19 pandemic started. It introduced in late 2025 a $1 billion funding to increase pay and cut back healthcare prices for its achievement and transportation workers within the US, growing the typical base pay to greater than $23 an hour.
Walmart, which is America’s largest personal employer, with many entry-level staffers, has elevated its beginning wages for associates by 93% since 2015, in accordance to the corporate. Associates make $18 an hour, on common.
NCS has reached out to FedEx and Flex, an trade group for ridesharing and supply apps.
GAO, which additionally checked out 2024 Census knowledge, discovered that just about 14 million adults who labored in some unspecified time in the future that 12 months had been enrolled in Medicaid, and 10.6 million adults lived in households that acquired Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the formal title for meals stamps. They principally labored full-time schedules, and a majority labored in one in every of 5 occupations, together with transportation and meals preparation and serving.
In 2020, about 12 million wage-earning adults had been coated by Medicaid, and 9 million acquired meals stamps, in accordance to the sooner GAO report, which checked out Census knowledge from the prior 12 months.
To qualify for meals stamps, candidates should earn lower than 130% of the federal poverty stage, or about $42,000 a 12 months for a household of 4. (Some states have increased revenue limits.) Medicaid recipients can earn not more than 138% of the federal poverty restrict, or about $22,000 for a person, although some states that didn’t broaden this system to low-income adults have decrease revenue thresholds.
The GAO report comes as tens of hundreds of thousands of meals stamp and Medicaid recipients might be required to work – or volunteer, go to college or enroll in job coaching packages – not less than 80 hours a month to keep their eligibility as a part of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he signed into regulation final summer time. Republicans have argued that the work mandate will assist low-income Americans turn into extra self-sufficient and escape poverty, whereas critics of the requirement say it would lead to extra folks being hungry and uninsured.
The growth of current work necessities in SNAP has already kicked in and has contributed to hundreds of thousands of recipients shedding their advantages, in accordance to advocates. The first-ever federal work mandate in Medicaid will start in January in most states.
The “big, beautiful bill” additionally curtails federal help for these security web packages, prompting states to scramble to discover methods to cowl their shares of the tab. New Jersey has opted to impose an annual evaluation on employers with 50 or extra full-time workers on Medicaid. The levy, which took impact July 1, ranges from $325 to $725 for every worker and their dependent.