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A worker at an Amazon warehouse in Aurora, Colo.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Credit<\/span>Rick T. Wilking\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By\u00a0Karen Weise<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Oct. 2, 2018 (NYTimes.com)<\/time>\n
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SEATTLE \u2014 Amazon said on Tuesday that it would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for its United States employees, a rare acknowledgment that it was feeling squeezed by political pressure and a tight labor market. The raises apply for part-time workers and those hired through temporary agencies.<\/p>\n
The company said it would also lobby Washington to raise the federal minimum wage, which has been set at $7.25 for almost a decade.<\/p>\n
The new wages will apply to more than 250,000 Amazon employees, including those at the grocery chain Whole Foods, as well as the more than 100,000 seasonal employees it plans to hire for the holiday season. The change will not apply to contract workers. It goes into effect on Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe listened to our critics, thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead,\u201d Amazon\u2019s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about this change and encourage our competitors and other large employers to join us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Employment has become one of Amazon\u2019s most potent political vulnerabilities as well as its most important political message. The shift to online shopping, led by Amazon, has forced many retailers like Toys \u201cR\u201d Us and Sears to shut down or lay off workers across the country. President Trump\u00a0has criticized<\/a>\u00a0the company for hurting traditional retailers, and some lawmakers have called for the company to be broken up.<\/p>\n
At the same time, jobs at Amazon\u2019s warehouses and sorting centers have boomed. The company now employs about 575,000 people worldwide, up more than 50 percent in the past year, a fact Amazon frequently plays up.<\/p>\n
But the pay of those workers has become a growing issue for activists, especially as the fortunes of Amazon and Mr. Bezos have skyrocketed. Amazon\u2019s market capitalization\u00a0 passed<\/a>\u00a0$1 trillion last month, though it has since fallen slightly below that level. Mr. Bezos is now the richest person in the world, with a net worth of\u00a0 $165 billion<\/a>, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they saw the writing on the wall. I think they saw the calculation that it was indefensible that a man whose wealth is over $150 billion be able to continue paying workers wages that are so low that they are forced to rely on federal benefits,\u201d Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said in an interview after the announcement. \u201cSmart people are willing to change course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Sanders and labor organizers have criticized the wages and conditions of Amazon\u2019s work force. They have focused on employees at the company\u2019s warehouses, and with the contract drivers who make last-mile deliveries. Some workers at the grocery chain Whole Foods, which Amazon bought last year, have recently begun\u00a0 a push<\/a>\u00a0to organize a union.<\/p>\n
Amazon had been paying a starting minimum wage of $11 an hour, and said its average wage for full-time workers at the fulfillment centers where it packages and sorts orders was more than $15 an hour. It had not disclosed pay for part-time and contract workers. Amazon said workers who now make more than $15 an hour will also get a pay bump, though it won\u2019t say how much.<\/p>\n
As recently as last month Amazon was resisting the pressure. Mr. Sanders had pointed to\u00a0 new financial disclosures<\/a>\u00a0from the company showing its median pay was $28,446, meaning half of its employees made less. Amazon, which is typically reserved when responding to criticism,\u00a0 publicly pushed back<\/a>, saying Mr. Sanders\u2019s statements were \u201cmisleading\u201d and that median pay for its full-time employees in the United States was $34,123.<\/p>\n
Mr. Sanders said he was particularly surprised to see Mr. Bezos raising pay to $15 almost immediately, rather than phasing it in over several years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is bold, no question about it,\u201d he said. Mr. Bezos thanked Mr. Sanders on Twitter for praising the change. \u201cWe\u2019re excited about this, and also hope others will join in,\u201d Mr. Bezos wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Jeff Bezos<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
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✔<\/b><\/span><\/span>@JeffBezos<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Thank you @<\/span>SenSanders<\/span><\/a>. We\u2019re excited about this, and also hope others will join in.<\/p>\n
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Bernie Sanders<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
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✔<\/b><\/span><\/span>@SenSanders<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
What Mr. Bezos has done today is not only enormously important for Amazon\u2019s hundreds of thousands of employees, it could well be a shot heard around the world. I urge corporate leaders around the country to follow Mr. Bezos’ lead. https:\/\/<\/span>twitter.com\/AP\/status\/1047071590830280704\u00a0<\/span>\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
8:51 AM – Oct 2, 2018<\/time><\/a><\/div>\n
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The union-backed Fight for $15 campaign, which has been calling for a higher minimum wage for six years, called Amazon\u2019s plan a major victory. It is\u00a0 organizing strikes<\/a>\u00a0in several states this week to build support for unions in advance of the midterm elections. Fight for $15 says more than a fifth of the population in the United States now lives in a state or city that has passed a $15 wage target, including California and New York, two major markets for Amazon. Increasingly, the company is putting operations close to and inside city borders to enable quick delivery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers worldwide have been standing up, joining together, and winning!\u201d the organization\u00a0 said<\/a>\u00a0in a message on Twitter. \u201cAmazon is just the latest company to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Amazon has added robots at its warehouses and has expanded experiments like Amazon Go, its cashierless convenience stores that require few employees. But it still has a huge need for workers, particularly as the holiday season approaches. With the United States unemployment rate below 4 percent, the tight labor market has made it harder to attract the workers it and other retailers need.<\/p>\n
The smaller supply of prospective workers has\u00a0 slowly been pushing wages higher<\/a>. The average wage for retail sales workers across the United States is $13.20 an hour, according to\u00a0 federal data<\/a>. For all retail workers, including salespeople, cashiers and supervisors,\u00a0 the average wage is $18.85<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Last year Target\u00a0 announced<\/a>\u00a0it would raise minimum pay to $15 an hour by 2020, and Costco\u00a0 raised<\/a>\u00a0its to $14 an hour. In January, Walmart, the country\u2019s largest private employer, said it was raising starting wages to $11 after the new tax law passed, though critics noted that it was\u00a0 laying off<\/a>\u00a0workers as it tried to quietly close 63 Sam\u2019s Club stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment in the United States, unemployment is pretty low, and Amazon may be struggling to recruit and retain employees,\u201d said Alan Manning, an economics professor at the London School of Economics who has studied minimum wage policies. \u201cIt\u2019s also a bit of good publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, less than an hour after the announcement on Tuesday, Dave Clark, Amazon\u2019s senior vice president in charge of operations, posted a video on Twitter of employees at a fulfillment center in Southern California cheering as he broke the news to them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Dave Clark<\/span><\/span>@davehclark<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Shared the new Amazon $15 minimum wage with the team here at LGB3 early this morning! Best All Hands Ever!!! $\"👊\"$ $\"😃\"$ <\/p>\n
3:31 AM – Oct 2, 2018<\/time><\/a><\/div>\n
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Amazon also announced minimum pay increases to \u00a310.50 in London and \u00a39.50 elsewhere in Britain. It said the minimum pay would benefit 17,000 Amazon employees and more than 20,000 seasonal workers in the country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The wage increase comes as the company plans to announce the location of its second headquarters before the end of this year. The new site, which Amazon says will eventually employ up to 50,000 highly paid technology workers, is widely expected to get what could be billions of dollars in tax breaks and other incentives from state and local governments.<\/p>\n
The size of the potential taxpayer payout, and the secrecy around the bidding process,\u00a0 have frustrated even some lawmakers<\/a>\u00a0in cities hoping to land the headquarters. With the company\u2019s promise to help lobby for a higher minimum wage, it attached itself to a progressive cause. Almost all of the 20 regions on Amazon\u2019s shortlist are run by Democrats, so the increase may buy the company some local good will.<\/p>\n
It also lets Amazon, which accounts for\u00a0 almost half<\/a>\u00a0of all online sales in the United States, ratchet up pressure on other retailers. \u201cOnce you\u2019re paying a higher wage, you tend to want your competitors to also pay a higher wage,\u201d said Professor Manning. \u201cIf your costs are going up, you\u2019d also quite like your rivals\u2019 costs to go up as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amazon provided almost no details in its announcement about how it plans to push for a higher federal minimum wage, and a representative at the company declined to elaborate. But the business has, in recent years,\u00a0 built<\/a>\u00a0one of the largest lobbying teams in Washington, spending\u00a0 $13 million<\/a>\u00a0last year.<\/p>\n
Given the political divide in the current Congress, Mr. Sanders said it still seemed unlikely that higher wages would pass. Instead, Mr. Sanders said, it\u2019s more likely to become a campaign issue, as well as put pressure on other large employers. Mr. Bezos\u2019s \u201cdecision today is going to have a ripple effect to other corporations and other cities and states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And unions say Amazon is not off the hook either. Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is in the early stages of working with employees at Whole Foods, said in a statement that the wage increase was a \u201cpositive step.\u201d But he said it did not address other conditions, like giving more workers full-time positions and alleviating the production pressure some employees feel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still so very much more that Amazon needs to do to be considered a decent employer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Adam Satariano contributed reporting from London.<\/em><\/p>\n
Follow Karen Weise on Twitter:\u00a0@kyweise<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A version of this article appears in print on\u00a0Oct. 2, 2018<\/time>, on Page\u00a0A1\u00a0of the New York edition\u00a0with the headline:\u00a0Amazon Raises Minimum Pay To $15 an Hour.\u00a0Order Reprints<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0 Today\u2019s Paper<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0 Subscribe<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ImageA worker at an Amazon warehouse in Aurora, Colo.CreditCreditRick T. Wilking\/Getty Images By\u00a0Karen Weise Oct. 2, 2018 (NYTimes.com) SEATTLE \u2014 Amazon said on Tuesday that it would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour for its United States employees, a rare acknowledgment that it was feeling squeezed by political… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}