Amazon workers on food stamps have tripled despite its record revenue—and it’s just the latest evidence of the new economy of shrinking labor shares

The U.S. workforce has just made the type of history it likely wishes it didn’t. Working Americans are taking home the smallest percentage of economic output, 52.8%, since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the metric in 1947.

But as the share of wealth workers take home through wages—called labor share—is shrinking, corporate profits have exploded, with the S&P 500 index gaining 600% since the beginning of the century, while wages have increased just 12.5% over the same period, adjusted for inflation.

In other words: Corporations are raking in cash, but American workers are reaping less and less of the rewards. 

The consequences associated with shrinking labor shares are now becoming tangible. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that across the 11 states sampled, Amazon, the country’s largest company by revenue, has 12,346 workers on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and 11,338 relying on Medicaid. That was nearly triple the number of Amazon employees in need of federal assistance compared to 2020, when GAO conducted a similar report. During that same period, Amazon saw an increase in annual profits from $11.6 billion to $77.7 billion. Amazon’s 2025 revenue soared 12% year-over-year, from $638 billion to a record $717 billion.

Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty told Fortune the conclusion drawn from the GAO report is “wrong,” and that it is misleading to look at raw numbers rather than percentages.

“When you look at the actual facts, you see that Amazon pay is among the best in the industry, regular full-time employees have access to health care from their first day—at only $5 per week with $5 copays for employee-only coverage—and 74% of our regular full-time employees are enrolled in an Amazon health insurance plan, well above the 65% private-sector take-up rate for full-time workers,” she said in a statement. “We challenge other large retailers to provide the same Day 1 comprehensive........

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