Since Amazon was founded nearly 30 years ago, we’ve been focused on delighting our customers and working to exceed their expectations. This has led us to innovate and make high-impact investments that help us better serve our customers, and that also positively affect the communities where we operate and the economy as a whole.
Our investments in supporting our teams and in serving our customers have helped to grow the U.S. economy by nearly one trillion dollars since 2010. Today, Amazon supports 4.5 million American jobs, with more than a quarter of those jobs coming from the small- and medium-sized businesses that sell in our store.
There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who work directly for Amazon in a range of roles—from corporate offices to data centers to our fulfillment network. Forty percent of all the jobs that Amazon has created in the last five years were created in small town America and close to half of Amazon hires for logistics jobs were previously unemployed. The front-line jobs across our fulfillment network come with an average hourly wage of $22 an hour, triple the federal minimum wage. And regardless of career level, every regular full-time employee has access to a comprehensive benefits package that includes health insurance from the first day on the job, a 401(k) plan with a company match, up to 20 weeks of paid leave for birthing parents, free mental health support, and access to subsidized skills training opportunities.
Having created more jobs in the past decade than any other U.S. company, we understand the value in creating opportunities for our employees to climb the economic ladder. That’s why we have programs like Career Choice where we pre-pay college tuition, reimburse the cost of books and fees, and provide 10 free skills training programs that offer a pathway to higher paying jobs within the company or elsewhere. Flexibility is the hallmark of Career Choice—it’s centered on the learner, not the needs of the business. And we believe that’s one of the reasons why Amazon was ranked first on LinkedIn’s Top Companies list for the third consecutive year.
We also value the communities where we operate and have sought to seamlessly weave into their fabric. We do this by offering our infrastructure, resources, and spirit of invention to address some of the most acute challenges of today. We believe in a fair, just, and sustainable society and have partnered with more than 1,500 nonprofits nationwide to help chart a better course. We’re working to build and preserve affordable housing, provide logistics capabilities to tackle hunger, and empower underserved students with increased access to tech education programs.
Together, these programs and this investment in the U.S. economy have a big impact. The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) has put Amazon at the top of its list for capital investments here at home—investments they say “power job growth and raise living standards.” According to PPI, in 2022, Amazon invested $46.5 billion in the U.S. Our U.S. capital spend was even more in 2023, and we expect our investments to continue to climb in 2024.
Additionally, Amazon is one of the largest research and development (R&D) spenders in the U.S., investing billions of dollars in new technologies like artificial intelligence to improve our services and products for customers.
As a result of the investments and innovation we produce on behalf of customers, we also contribute to social and economic objectives through our tax contributions. In addition, to the direct taxes that we pay and the direct investments we make, there are additional taxes we pay and administer for governments on behalf of our customers, employees, and third-party sellers.
Together, Amazon’s 2023 tax contributions include:
- $8.7 billion of current federal income tax expense.
- $5.6 billion in federal taxes that include employer payroll taxes, customs duties, and other taxes and fees.
- $20.5 billion in other federal, state, and local taxes collected on behalf of employees.
- $6.5 billion in state and local taxes of all types.
- $27.7 billion in sales taxes we collected and remitted on behalf of states and localities throughout the U.S.
We’re excited for the potential 2024 has to offer, and will continue to invest, invent, create jobs, and support local communities nationwide.
Learn more about Amazon’s global economic impact and tax contribution.
Learn more about Amazon’s global approach to tax.
