Amazon.com Gets Obscene Amount from Taxpayers
Amazon has squeezed more than $5.1 billion in economic subsidies from various localities and states, even as it plans massive layoffs, according to new research recently published by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Good Jobs First.
The organization recently posted its tax break data at its Amazon Tracker database. The database documents hundreds of Amazon’s incentive deals.
“Most of the U.S. subsidy packages are for warehouses, even though Amazon’s rapid-delivery Prime business model compels it to build hundreds of such facilities close to affluent communities,” Good Jobs First said in a statement.
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“Amazon also recently announced it will lay off thousands of workers and cancel some of its distribution expansion plans, admitting it overbuilt. While the company has failed to sign its first collective bargaining agreement with warehouse workers who have voted to unionize, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is scrubbing his image with charitable-giving announcements.”
Within the last two years, as Good Jobs First documented:
• Amazon received one of its biggest packages ever in Niagara County, New York. In exchange for $124 million, Amazon promised to create 950 jobs paying roughly the county’s minimum wage when the warehouse opens: $15 an hour. The jobs, per the agreement, were part-time or contract workers employed by temp agencies.
• Blount County, Tennessee committed $12 million for road improvements necessitated by an Amazon warehouse. Amazon will make payments for that work via a Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement, over the next 20 years, instead of paying property taxes.
• A developer that will house an Amazon warehouse is benefiting from a tax increment financing (TIF) deal that will lower its costs by $1.8 million in Charlton, Massachusetts.
• Amazon got more than $51 million for data centers in Morrow County, Oregon in 2022.
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According to its website, Good Jobs First is a policy resource center that promotes corporate and government accountability in economic development
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