Amazon Offers Prime Discount to Those on Government Assistance

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 12, 11:20AM EST · Published Jun 6, 4:53AM EDT

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Amazon Offers Prime Discount to Those on Government Assistance — © courtesy of Amazon.com Inc.

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) has come up with a new program that offers discounts for its Prime service to people on a number of government assistance programs. Those who want to use the program have to demonstrate they qualify with a valid EBT card.

An EBT card is commonly used to disburse funds for several government assistance programs including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC), Amazon management said.

The price of the service will be $5.99 a month. Prime usually costs $10.99 a year. As is the case with regular Prime memberships, people can cancel at any time.

Greg Greeley, vice president of Amazon Prime, said:

We know when people try Prime they love it, because they save time and money with low prices on millions of items, unlimited access to premium videos and music, and fast, convenient delivery. 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.

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Amazon did not say how many people it thought would use the new program.

Prime is considered one of the best-run customer loyalty programs from any consumer facing company in the United States. For a modest price, customers get two-day free shipping and access to a massive library of streaming video content, some of which Amazon produces itself. It is widely believed that Prime members are much more likely to shop regularly at Amazon than those who are not in the program.

Prime fights for market share in the streaming video business against two other large providers of streaming services: Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX).

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.