Amazon Warehouse Workers Say They Struggle to Afford Food, Rent
Five years after Amazon.com Inc. raised wages to $15 an hour, half of warehouse workers surveyed by researchers say they struggle to afford enough food or a place to live.
The national study, published Wednesday by the University of Illinois Chicago's Center for Urban Economic Development, asked US employees about their economic wellbeing, including whether they'd skipped meals, went hungry, or were worried about being able to make rent or mortgage payments.
Fifty-three percent of respondents reported that they'd experienced one or more forms of food insecurity in the prior three months, and 48% experienced one or more forms of housing insecurity. Workers who said they took unpaid time off after getting hurt on the job were more likely to report trouble paying their bills, the researchers found.
“It's not necessarily that Amazon's an outlier,” said Sanjay Pinto, who co-authored the study with Beth Gutelius. Still, “they're certainly not taking the lead in creating family-sustaining jobs.”
Amazon has long been criticized for its treatment of employees, especially those who pack and ship boxes in its warehouses. Much of the criticism has focused on injuries that have exceeded the rate of logistics industry peers. Amazon has pledged to make its warehouses safer, in part by automating aspects of the job that require repetitive motions. Pinto and Gutelius examined injuries among Amazon's ranks in a report published in October before turning their focus to workers' economic circumstances.
The Seattle-based company is the second-largest private-sector employer in the US behind Walmart Inc. Amazon accounts for about 29% of the US warehousing industry workforce, the researchers estimate. As such, the company plays a leading role in setting pay and working conditions of a sector transformed by e-commerce.
The 98-question online survey sought out Amazon employees through social media advertising, targeting warehouses and neighborhoods that host company facilities.
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