Posted on 06/07/2017 10:45:37 AM PDT by Captain Peter Blood
Amazon will now offer discount memberships to its Prime subscription service at a rate of $5.99 each month.
Prime is best known for getting subscribers unlimited free two-day shipping on most items, as well as allowing access to Prime Music, Prime Video, Prime Reading and Prime Photos. For now, the discount is available to people with a valid Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, but Amazon said it plans to expand the lower rate to people on other government assistance programs.
Amazon said a Prime membership helps customers “save time and money.”
“We designed this membership option for customers receiving government assistance to make our everyday selection and savings more accessible, including the many conveniences and entertainment benefits of Prime,” said Greg Greeley,Vice President of Amazon Prime, in a press release.
EBT cards are used to distribute funds from a number of government assistance programs, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program (WIC) and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Programs and distribution mechanisms can vary by state.
As of last month, there were over 21 million households comprising nearly 43 million people on SNAP. Each household’s average monthly benefit is $252.92.
To enroll, people have to provide an eligible EBT number. The service will cost $5.99 a month instead of the usual $10.99 and can be canceled at anytime, but customers can’t use their benefits to pay the monthly fee. They’ll then have access to all of Prime’s deals and services, including a 20 percent discount on diaper subscriptions.
The discounted Prime membership is Amazon’s latest effort to compete with Walmart for low-income shoppers. In January the online retailer announced that starting this summer, people can use food stamps to pay for its online grocery service. Amazon is participating with six other grocery retailers as part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture program aimed at eliminating neighborhoods where residents don’t have access to affordable, fresh food. As with the discounted Prime memberships, customers can’t use their government benefits to pay the program fees.
That program will be available in seven pilot states in both rural and urban areas, USDA said. The agency said the experiment will help test online ordering and payment using EBT.
Amazon is offering discounted Prime memberships to people on government assistance. Ted S. Warren AP
To their credit, they have sold Student Prime, which at least has some potential of serving an actual paying customer. On the very least, certain aspects do play well to transfer students ;)
I’d sure like to know what was going through their minds. They’re trying to tap a market that has trouble with having actual cash.
Not necessarily. My paternal 7th great grandfather was the progenitor of a large and far-flung group of descendants, some of whom became Mormon in the years leading up to the Civil War.
As a result, a whole lot of Mormons have created records for him in Salt Lake City due to having posthumously baptized him, or as some may know it rather derogatorily, he's been "dead dunked" multiple times. None of the "records" are accurate. Some have him here in NC in the mid-1600's. No. Some have him still in Maryland in the 1800's. No again.
By my count there are seven conflicting records there. Anyone attempting to research this line who relies upon LDS documents will be one very confused individual.
Why not - the poor get special phone rates, electric rates, cable television rates, pay no federal income tax and actually get tax money sent to them, and in Jersey get their property taxes capped after a set amount - all at the expense of the “rich” who pick up the tab - and then get excoriated as “free-loaders” by the likes of Moodbat Jerry Brown of California should they complain.....
Our disabled vets deserve whatever we can provide them regardless of their age! So tired of the best getting the least.
If Amazon can hold down theft they’ve got a winner. ( Boxes on porches in high crime rate neighborhoods are ‘seductive’ to lowlifes.)
My late Father lived in a Retirement Community in a Condo I owned. His only income was Social Security.
He gets a call from the local Social Worker who tells him he can help him get additional Government Benefits if he qualifies.
The guy signs him up for Food Stamps. I find out when I was over there and saw the Letter he was supposed to sign and send back in.
The Benefit was for $15 Dollars a Month. Yes, $15.
After I got done laughing, I sent the Letter back telling them to cancel it. For the next year, he kept getting Letters telling him he was Eligible and asking why he isn’t using it.
The waste of money in Postage alone was ridiculous.
Unreal. My father passed away last December, I bet he could have qualified also for that $15 a month. I mean what can you spend that on? As my Father would have said on that, well I can get a RC cola and Moon Pie.
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