Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is in hot water once again for saying what many claim are ridiculous things — this time slamming Amazon for paying peanuts to employees.
By: Howard M. Riell
Problem is: they don’t. Ocasio-Cortez, the first-time Congresswoman, known nationally for repeatedly jamming her foot in her mouth in front of television cameras, criticized Amazon for paying entry-level, order-fulfillment center workers just $15 per hour – even though that is double the federally mandated minimum wage. Her statements came as a guest on ABC News’ “This Week” program eight days ago.
The Congresswoman also complained about the economy, which she judges to be “immoral,” and insisted that Amazon underpays, as she put it, “every single person.”
Amazon justifiably called the allegations “absurd.” Rather than apologize, Ocasio-Cortez turned up the volume, taking to social media to broadcast her silliness more widely.
According to Amazon, it employs about 647,000 across the United States. In addition to salary, full-time and some part-time employees receive health-care coverage and college benefits.
One of Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets bellowed that “1 in 10 of Amazon’s Ohio employees were on food stamps after the company opened fulfillment centers in the state. Paying full-time employees so little that they require gov food assistance is what paying starvation wages means.”
“The disconcerting thing is the amount of job destruction she brings about, as well as the airtime she gets,” the New York Post’s Jonathon Trugman wrote. “She helped kill 25,000 high-paying jobs in the city, which needs them, and yet some people treat her like she walks on water. It’s a shame, because 77 percent of New Yorkers wanted the Amazon jobs and $150,000 average pay packages, and the governor made a good deal that would have netted NY and NYC $25 billion in tax revenue over 10 years, despite a modest credit in the beginning.”
Only weeks ago, radio talk show host Mark Levin said this about Ocasio-Cortez on BlazeTV: “The idea that this woman is celebrated and promoted by the media is really appalling. She’s a dunderhead, she doesn’t know a damn thing, she hasn’t done a damn thing. This is like going to a sorority house or a frat house. People are sitting around after about three beers just burping out stupid stuff all the time.”
More recently, she posted a video on social media in which she likened detention centers at America’s southern border to World War Two-style concentration camps. “The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are,” the witless Ocasio-Cortez said.
