Corporations fear worker-centric progressive movement

Democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is tired of government handouts. Sanders is seeking to finally end entitlement bailout programs for corporations which help them keep worker wages at starvation levels while the American taxpayer is left holding the bill. Last month Sanders introduced legislation that would tax corporations with 500 or more employees a 100 percent tax on the amount of government benefits received by their workers. Congressman Ro Khanna had already introduced a similar bill in the House last summer. Since then Sanders has been on a tear criticizing big corporations in a PR campaign that seems to be yielding results.

Corporate welfare

The introduced bill is titled the Stop Bezos ACT, which is a jab at Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos who has often been criticized for consistently paying rock bottom starvation wages to his workers, forcing them to seek government benefits in order to make ends meet. Despite being a $1 trillion company the corporation has thousands of workers who are currently relying on food stamps to survive due to their low pay. Amazon and other similar low-paying large corporations are essentially being subsidized by taxpayer money to allow them to pay workers literal starvation wages, all the while making extremely large profits for themselves, executives and shareholders.

Corporations fear the Bern

It turns out Bezos was listening to Sanders and that he is afraid of the brewing progressive movement focusing on the rights and interests of workers over corporations. After continued criticism from Sanders following the introduction of the bill which names Bezos via acronym in the bill's title, Amazon announced, due to the political pressure, it is raising its minimum wage to $15 per hour. Amazon is also calling on other large corporate employers to follow suit.

McDonald's is next

Shortly after Amazon announced that it is succumbing to political pressure to raise its minimum wage Sanders immediately continued his tireless efforts on behalf of the interests of workers. Sanders is now calling on McDonald's to follow suit and raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour just like Amazon has done. McDonald's, like most other corporations which benefitted from President Donald Trump's corporate giveaway plan, known as the GOP tax cut plan, used most of the tax cut money on stock buybacks and dividends for shareholders. “If McDonald's can afford to give its shareholders $7.7 billion, it can afford to pay all of its workers $15 an hour,” wrote Sanders in a letter to McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook.