REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
Digital retail giant Amazon has been revealed to employ a large amount of low-earning workers, with their median employee pay being $28,446 in 2017 and the company being a top employer of SNAP recipients in four states, according to The Seattle Times and The Intercept. Amazon has its fair share of high earners earning over $100,000, and founder Jeff Bezos took home $1,681,840 last year according to the company’s annual proxy report. But majority of its employees are blue-collar workers earning “$11 and $16 an hour,” according to the Times. The company also landed in the top 20 employers of SNAP recipients of four states, according to records obtained by The Intercept–with one in three employees receiving SNAP in Arizona and one in 10 employees getting SNAP benefits in Pennsylvania and Ohio. State and local governments have given the company more than $1.2 billion in incentives for warehouse expansion and more employment so far, but an Institute for Local Self-Reliance 2016 study found that Amazon pays its fulfillment center workers “9 percent less than the industry average.” In a statement to the Times, Amazon said it provided competitive wages “in every country and every sector where we employ people.”