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To the editor:
The big news is that Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, announced that he plans to give away most of his money to charity. His current net worth is $120.5 billion.
The obvious question is how come none of this generosity is shown to his warehouse workers at Amazon. He continues to pay them poverty wages and ruthlessly fights attempts by any of them to unionize.
The average salary for Amazon warehouse workers in New York is $32,431 a year. The only warehouse workers making more than $37,000 a year are the store shoppers, who make $52,567 annually, which is still not much.
Now their annual salaries would increase to $62,400 if he paid $30 an hour and $40 an hour would get them up to $83,200, which would be a livable wage for this city. So one would think he should do that for workers who helped him make his money before giving his fortune away.
Bezos is just the latest greedy rich person who wants us to think that he's humane because he gives to charity.
But none of these rich people seem interested in creating a world where charity is not needed. I'll be impressed when one of these multi-billionaires pay all their workers good salaries, push for the complete health coverage that all other developed nations have and an increase in Social Security that will pay enough so that those who don't have pensions will not starve during their "golden" years. But I don't believe that U.S. Marshal Reuben J. Cogburn will bet his drunken cat on that happening anytime soon.
Richard Warren
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