Food stamps and Medicaid are increasingly associated with Amazon and gig economy jobs. That may sound harsh, but it’s just the reality highlighted by a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders. The report was first reported on by the Washington Post.
Amazon employee reliance on food stamps and Medicaid has exploded between the start of the Covid pandemic in February of 2020 and September of 2025, with the raw number nearly tripling.
Meanwhile, drivers for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Instacart who are on food stamps rank number one when their whole category of work is compared to employers like Amazon and Walmart. As for their representation in Medicaid, gig economy drivers wouldn’t have even been in the top 5 in 2020, and now they’re in the top 3.
The report relied on the census, along with employment data from 11 states. It also makes the following broad observations about working people who use these programs:
- “About two-thirds worked full time”
- “Most worked for private sector employers”
- “Workers were largely in transportation, restaurants and food prep, and retail sales jobs”
In a Senate press release accompanying the report, Sanders makes an appeal to taxpayers who must, he says, “subsidize the starvation wages of large corporations like Walmart and Amazon,” while the companies themselves are “paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages and spending billions of dollars on stock buybacks to enrich their wealthy shareholders.”
Rachael Lighty, an Amazon spokesperson claimed to the Washington Post that the report was “misleading.” The report looks at “raw numbers instead of percentages,” meaning Amazon may rank just because it has so many workers. She also said since Amazon makes part-time work an option, those workers might be eligible for Medicaid and SNAP.
DoorDash pointed the Post to a survey saying a third of its workers claim to be working in order to avoid the need for such benefits.
And a gig worker industry group called Flex spoke on behalf of Uber, with its CEO making claims to the Post about various benefits of its employment model, and saying workers who might be otherwise on government help can “turn to flexible work to bridge the gap.”
