Amazon reiterates call for higher minimum wage
Amazon says a $15 federal minimum wage would benefit both workers and employers.
In a corporate blog post dated July 18, Jay Carney, senior VP of global corporate affairs at Amazon, said if passed into law, the Raise the Wage Act would “significantly improve the lives of millions of American workers.” Passed by the House, the Raise the Wage Act raises the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, although some states and municipalities have set their minimum wage higher.
In addition to urging passage of the Raise the Wage Act into law, Carney also urges other employers to unilaterally increase their own minimum wage to $15 per hour. Amazon raised its minimum wage to that amount in 2018. According to Carney, the number of people applying to Amazon in October 2018, after the e-tailer announced its pay hike, was 850,000, nearly triple the number from one year earlier.
This is not the first time an Amazon executive has publicly called for its competitors to raise their minimum wage. In April 2019, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dared other retailers to beat its pay and benefits package in his annual letter to shareholders. Bezos also cited Amazon benefits such as its Career Choice program, which pays up to 95% of tuition and fees towards a certificate or diploma in qualified fields of study, even if those employees wind up leaving Amazon.
Meanwhile, Carney’s blog post mentioned Upskilling 2025, Amazon’s nearly $1 billion initiative to offer 100,000 U.S. employees across the company the opportunity to get trained in high-demand areas like medicine, software engineering, IT and machine learning.
Retail minimum wage has been a hot issue with the public, and with politicians, for some time, and major retailers are responding. At its June shareholders meeting, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon cited his company’s increase in its own minimum pay rate by 50% during the past four years in a call for the federal government to raise the floor on wages. Walmart’s minimum wage is $11, and the company says its average full-time store associate earns $14.26 per hour.
And Target bumped its minimum hourly wage to $13 starting in June as part of its goal to hit $15 an hour by the end of 2020.
In a corporate blog post dated July 18, Jay Carney, senior VP of global corporate affairs at Amazon, said if passed into law, the Raise the Wage Act would “significantly improve the lives of millions of American workers.” Passed by the House, the Raise the Wage Act raises the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, although some states and municipalities have set their minimum wage higher.
In addition to urging passage of the Raise the Wage Act into law, Carney also urges other employers to unilaterally increase their own minimum wage to $15 per hour. Amazon raised its minimum wage to that amount in 2018. According to Carney, the number of people applying to Amazon in October 2018, after the e-tailer announced its pay hike, was 850,000, nearly triple the number from one year earlier.
This is not the first time an Amazon executive has publicly called for its competitors to raise their minimum wage. In April 2019, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos dared other retailers to beat its pay and benefits package in his annual letter to shareholders. Bezos also cited Amazon benefits such as its Career Choice program, which pays up to 95% of tuition and fees towards a certificate or diploma in qualified fields of study, even if those employees wind up leaving Amazon.
Meanwhile, Carney’s blog post mentioned Upskilling 2025, Amazon’s nearly $1 billion initiative to offer 100,000 U.S. employees across the company the opportunity to get trained in high-demand areas like medicine, software engineering, IT and machine learning.
Retail minimum wage has been a hot issue with the public, and with politicians, for some time, and major retailers are responding. At its June shareholders meeting, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon cited his company’s increase in its own minimum pay rate by 50% during the past four years in a call for the federal government to raise the floor on wages. Walmart’s minimum wage is $11, and the company says its average full-time store associate earns $14.26 per hour.
And Target bumped its minimum hourly wage to $13 starting in June as part of its goal to hit $15 an hour by the end of 2020.