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Our Impact / Economy

We recognized front-line employees by investing $2.5 billion in additional pay in 2020.

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Amazon’s Career Choice program pays 95% of employees’ tuition.

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Amazon is #2 on Forbes 2020 World's Best Employers list.

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Amazon’s new $2 billion Housing Equity Fund will preserve and create over 20,000 affordable homes.

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AWS will provide free cloud computing skills training to 29 million people around the world through programs available to anyone.

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In 2020, we provided more than $1 billion in AWS credits to help early-stage startups.

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We offer at least $15 per hourly wage across the U.S., more than double the national minimum wage.

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We partnered with food banks and schools to deliver more than 12 million meals to underserved families in 2020.

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Over 40,000 veterans and military spouses work at Amazon.

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Every 4.5 seconds an Amazonian is tested for COVID-19.

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Why Amazon Supports a $15 Minimum Wage

In 2018, Amazon raised its starting wage for all U.S. employees to at least $15 an hour. We’ve seen the positive impact this has had on our employees, their families, and their communities. Since then, we’ve been lobbying Congress to increase the federal minimum wage—which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009.

Rising Tide: The Comeback

Meet some of Amazon’s neighbors near Nashville. See how our $15/hr starting wage is helping this salon bounce back from the pandemic.

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See how Amazon employees reacted to our $15 starting wage in 2018

Studies show that wage increases help communities and fuel economic growth. The investments we made in our hourly employees quickly benefitted local businesses and economies.

Learn more from recent economic research:

The National Employment Law Project: The gradual increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would narrow racial and gender pay gaps.
The Economic Policy Institute: Increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 would lift wages for 40 million workers.
The American Economic Association: Multiple papers showcase the positive impact of a higher minimum wage.
UC Berkeley and Brandeis University, Study: Amazon’s 2018 wage increase also upped pay for non-Amazon employees.

We have taken positions on other important issues, including those below.

Diversity and inclusion are good for business—and more fundamentally—simply right

Customers represent a wide array of genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, ages, religions, sexual orientations, military status, backgrounds, and political views. It’s critical that Amazon employees are also diverse and that we foster a culture where inclusion is the norm.

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All people should have access to housing they can afford

Low-income and minority families are disproportionately affected by an affordable housing shortage in the U.S. While only governments at the local, state and federal level have the capacity to implement more effective housing policies, we believe the private and public sectors can work together to address this challenge.

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Counterfeiters should receive stronger penalties under federal law

Counterfeit is one of the few crimes specifically prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, yet bad actors are undeterred and continue to push their products through online and physical stores, harming both consumers and the retail companies who serve them.

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