[wstuartcl]

I would praise them if they simply made the change before being shown to know about large % of their staff being forced to take subsidies to be able to live in national press. I don't tend to praise minimum standards of ethical and moral behavior.

[darawk]

You think paying people $15/hour is a minimum standard of ethical and moral behavior?

[wstuartcl]

Yes. I think being one of the largest/most profitable companies in the US while paying people the minimum wage required by law -- which also happens to ensure most of those employees can't survive without government subsidies in their locals is well below the minimum standard for ethical and moral behavior.

Reverse, Do you think that a company such as amazon should be paying their fulltime and part time employee a wage that requires government subsidies (that you and I pay for) to survive while enjoying the amount of revenue and profit they are receiving?

[darawk]

> Reverse, Do you think that a company such as amazon should be paying their fulltime and part time employee a wage that requires government subsidies (that you and I pay for) to survive while enjoying the amount of revenue and profit they are receiving?

Yes, I do. I think most people misunderstand government subsidies when they make this argument. The idea that the company you work for is responsible for maintaining your standard of living is a weird one, that doesn't really come from any obvious moral principle. We, as a society, have decided that we don't want people to have a standard of living below a certain level. Therefore we, as a society, should provide the resources to ensure that that happens. If Amazon wants to come to those people and say "we'll give you $X/hour to do this task for us", and those people say "Yes", then I don't see any good reason for that to change the moral calculus of society at large, or for Amazon to suddenly become responsible for that person's general welfare.