More Amazon and Gig Workers Rely on Public Assistance, Federal Study Shows
Washington, Wednesday, 22 July 2026.
A new federal report reveals that the number of Amazon employees relying on public assistance nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, sparking intense debate over corporate labor practices.
A Dramatic Rise in Corporate Aid Recipients
The newly released report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), published on July 22, 2026, highlights a stark shift in the demographics of federal aid recipients over the first half of the decade [1]. While overall reliance on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid has ticked upward since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of increase among employees at Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and major gig-economy platforms has vastly outpaced broader national trends [1]. Specifically, the number of Amazon workers receiving federal aid nearly tripled between 2020 and 2025, a period marked by rapid expansion for the e-commerce giant [1].
To understand the scale of this reliance, the GAO analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data from 2024 [2]. The findings reveal that out of approximately 28 million adults aged 19 to 64 enrolled in Medicaid, an estimated 13.8 million worked at some point during that year, representing approximately 49.286% of the program’s adult demographic [2]. Similarly, out of 20 million adults in the same age bracket living in households receiving SNAP benefits, 10.6 million worked in 2024, which accounts for 53% of that group [2]. These figures demonstrate that federal social safety nets are heavily populated by active members of the workforce rather than unemployed individuals [2].
The Reality of Employment Dynamics and Gig Work
A common misconception is that public assistance is primarily utilized by part-time workers, but the GAO’s analysis of 2024 Census data challenges this assumption [2]. In both the Medicaid and SNAP programs, approximately two-thirds of the working adult enrollees maintained full-time schedules, defined as working 35 hours or more per week [2]. However, these individuals were significantly less likely to secure full-time hours for 50 or more weeks per year when compared to wage-earning adults who did not participate in either public assistance program [2].
The vast majority of these working aid recipients are concentrated within the private sector, which employed 88 percent of wage-earning adult Medicaid enrollees and SNAP recipients in 2024 [2]. This cohort was also notably more likely to work in food service and food preparation occupations than those not receiving benefits [2]. The trend has been further exacerbated by the rise of ride-hailing and food delivery gig platforms, where drivers and delivery workers have increasingly flooded state-level public assistance lists [1]. Because gig workers are typically classified as independent contractors rather than traditional employees, they often lack access to company-sponsored healthcare and stable hourly wages, forcing them to rely on state-funded programs [1][GPT].
Corporate Accountability and the Subsidy Debate
The GAO’s state-specific analysis, utilizing data collected from 15 state agencies across 11 states as of September 2025, underscores the outsized role that large employers play in this dynamic [2]. The study identified 46 companies that ranked among the top 25 employers of Medicaid or SNAP recipients in at least two of the surveyed states, representing about one-third of all companies analyzed [2]. Notably, 17 of these 46 companies—or 36.957%—were among the 50 largest Fortune 500 companies by employee count [2].
This latest federal study, coordinated under the leadership of the GAO’s Kathryn Larin, serves as an update to a previous October 2020 report (GAO-21-45) and indicates that the trend of low-wage workers relying on public benefits has remained deeply entrenched [2]. As the data shows a tripling of Amazon workers on federal aid between 2020 and 2025, policymakers and labor advocates are expected to use these findings to push for stricter labor classifications for gig workers and increases to the federal minimum wage [1]. The persistent reliance of multibillion-dollar corporations on federal safety nets raises critical questions about whether taxpayers are indirectly subsidizing the operating costs of some of the world’s most valuable companies [1][2].