Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-workers-median-pay-in-2017-28446/

by danso • 8 years ago

126 136 8 years ago

seattletimes.com

nathanaldensr2• 8 years ago

This is a great article for demonstrating how mean and median can be used to manipulate perception.

jaysonelliot• 8 years ago

Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce.

Average/mean is disproportionately influenced by a small number of highly paid employees.

In this case, the article is clearly demonstrating that despite Amazon's commanding market share, incredible wealth, and the largess bestowed upon their executives, some of their workforce is so poorly paid that they may not even make a living wage.

goshx3• 8 years ago

That median is not US only.

baby3• 8 years ago

Median is the appropriate measure to use if you're looking at the overall pay of a company's workforce.

I would disagree with that. Imagine this dataset of salaries:

[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10]

You have around half employees being paid like shit (1) and half being paid well (10), but the median will show a good salary (10).

WhompingWindows• 8 years ago

Yes, I agree. Mean is obviously going to be to the right of median in this income distribution, since there will be many employees making 200k+.

In Seattle, Amazon’s more than 45,000 employees are paid an average of more than $110,000, according to an analysis of individual worker data posted to job review site Glassdoor. The median, or midpoint, of Amazon’s 566,000 individual employee salaries worldwide stood far lower.

Granted, we are using average data from Glassdoor, whereas Amazon is self-reporting the median salary information. Plus, Amazon has part-time workers whose wages it annualizes to include the dataset. This makes me wonder though, are they counting the benefits that those workers are not receiving due to their lower number of hours?

aje4032• 8 years ago

"Global Median"

Seattletimes.com

Don't they like Amazon out there or did the author fail an interview for Amazon or something?

fortythirteen• 8 years ago

Not to mention that this means the lower half of wage earners at Amazon make an average of $14 an hour, which isn't terrible for, what we can assume is, mostly unskilled labor.

nathanaldensr2• 8 years ago

Replying to myself: I didn't mean to imply that the article or its contents are manipulative; I merely meant that it's a good example of how different numbers can be, and how that is often used to manipulate perception.

sputniq• 8 years ago

So much for equality. I guess jeff bezos just thinks it normal

jdoliner• 8 years ago

Thinks what's normal exactly? That not all of his employees get paid an equal amount? I'm inclined to agree that he thinks that's normal, yes. Given that it's true at almost every company in the world, that seems like a reasonable position.

the_mitsuhiko• 8 years ago

I’m pretty sure it was about the amount paid not that not everybody is paid the same.

maxerickson• 8 years ago

It's driven by Amazon's low prices just as much as it is driven by Bezos' wealth. Customers get the benefit of the low prices.

I'm not saying that to congratulate Amazon, I'm pointing out that there are more people involved than Amazon shareholders and employees, people who apparently put low prices ahead of any concerns they have over compensation at Amazon.

Reedx• 8 years ago

Exactly. You can't have high wages and cheap shipping of cheap products. So far people are choosing the latter.

randyrand4• 8 years ago

Inequality is natural and just.

SE4L3• 8 years ago

Equality of what? Should one of the people who works in their warehouse in North Carolina make equal pay with a software engineer who lives in Seattle?

rinchik2• 8 years ago

Yep. That's the ultimate goal of the far left. Pure utopian Communism. Sad part is that they don't even realize it.

The equality of outcome controlled by the Government -- to even think about this concept is scary. This shit will def end with totalitarianism.

DimitarIbra9987• 8 years ago

nicely done Jeff Bezos, richest person in this world.

unpopular423• 8 years ago

Bezos' duty is to keep costs low and profits high and indeed he does his job well, just look at their stock.

DimitarIbra9• 8 years ago

and exploit employees.

elicash6• 8 years ago

This means a very sizable percentage of Amazon's workforce (though not quite half) could qualify for SNAP.

"130% of the poverty line for a three-person family is $2,213 a month, or about $26,600 a year." https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-...

jonknee• 8 years ago

Assuming these minimum wage workers are the only source of income for a family of three.

epicureanideal2• 8 years ago

You're assuming 2 kids and 1 income earner, though.

It's above minimum wage. If we say that's not enough, we should raise minimum wage. Or we should create a society where it's possible for the people currently working for $26k/yr to have a stable roadmap to much higher earnings. But I don't think Amazon alone is to blame for the problem.

elicash6• 8 years ago

I'm not assuming everyone with that salary qualifies. I think we just have different definitions of "sizable." I think given these numbers it's highly likely to be sizable percentage of salaries, essentially, that we're subsidizing for Amazon because of their refusal to pay living wages. What's sizable? 5%? 10%? 30%? Hard to say, and I don't exactly expect Amazon to come forward with these numbers.

Edit: Here's an article claiming it's more than 10% in Ohio that are on SNAP: https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2018/01/08/amazon-e...

SolarNet• 8 years ago

Except raising the minimum wage is often met with cries that it will stifle business and prevent competition. The problem is fundamentally that labor markets can't be free markets, and the minimum wage is not a viable way to control the market distortions. The better solution is to use a basic income which allows people to not work for companies like Amazon until they can pay a better wage.

aje4032• 8 years ago

That's true, but it's also important to note that non-US residents do not qualify for SNAP

mchannon• 8 years ago

Wouldn't jump to that conclusion, given that this number is a median, not a mean. The minimum full-time salary could also be $28,446 and yield the same median number, depending on how Amazon pays their bottom rung.

bluedino• 8 years ago

> Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos received $1,681,840 in compensation in 2017, the proxy statement said, $1.6 million of which represents the cost of providing his security.

Is that pretty typical for a person who is say, in the richest 5-100 people in the world to spend on security? What kind of protection does that buy?

Anderkent• 8 years ago

It does seem pretty low, but at some point I guess the lifestyle changes required become the constraint, not the money.

hjnilsson• 8 years ago

If we assume a reasonable bodyguard charges $100 an hour, and he has 2 bodyguards 16 hours a day (or 4 in 2 by 8 hours).

100 * 2 * 16 * 365 = $1.16 million

Count in that they need travel, food and hotels along with Bezos, and it’s not unreasonable or excessive.

duck• 8 years ago

And I would assume he has at some sort of protection around the clock, so that seems pretty low actually.

gowld3• 8 years ago

More to the point, the $1.6M number is wholly irrelevant, an accounting detail due to the "security" issue. Bezos makes $1B-$10B/yr because he is a major shareholder in Amazon.

Probably includes private air travel and some bodyguards.

donarb• 8 years ago

Not irrelevant because the news story is about direct compensation by the company to 2 different classes of employees. Factoring in stock ownership by Bezos is what's irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

akaryocyte• 8 years ago

In comparison Zuckerberg spent $7.3m last year on security https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/15/facebook-...

throwaway637h• 8 years ago

That's more than a junior yearly salary for a software engineer with a degree where I'm from though. With higher taxes, higher prices for consumer electronics and much more expensive gasoline.

seattle_spring• 8 years ago

And, presumably, far lower housing costs and overall CoL.

scarface749• 8 years ago

And probably universal healthcare, and stricter worker protections.

NegativeLatency• 8 years ago

That amount isn't much in the US.

elgenie2• 8 years ago

Amazon employs significantly more workers that are stocking warehouses and filling boxes than are writing code. So the median Amazon worker by pay is working in a warehouse, probably entry-level or thereabouts, and is making about $14 an hour.

krapp5• 8 years ago

So the median Amazon worker by pay is working in a warehouse, probably entry-level or thereabouts, and is making about $14 an hour.

Many are not even making that much.

elgenie2• 8 years ago

That's how a median works, yes.

I got the $14 per hour figure from the annual income reported as the median assuming 2080 work hours per year.

goshx3• 8 years ago

Worldwide.

No idea if they operate in Brazil, but using it as an example, USD $28,446 in Brazil is a great salary.

matheus2740• 8 years ago

The thing is, direct conversions do not really work. I don't think they operate much in Brazil, but if they did, the salaries would be adjusted to the Brazillian reality (minimum wage, average person income, purchasing power, etc), so in reality, it would be much less than 28 grand USD. The more real conversion is to use a purchasing power index, such as the big-mac index. Using the 2018 data for the big-mac index, that would probably equate to mostly 30.000,00 BRL, which is 2500 BRL/month, which is above Brazil's minimum wage, but it's still a very basic salary, probably comparable to earning 2200,00 USD in the US.

goshx3• 8 years ago

The point is, we don't know how the data was presented by Amazon. I'd expect that the wages reported would be in USD to show how much it actually costs to the company in the United States, and not some weird index.

If they pay, say, R$ 30,000.00/year, I doubt they'd report anything other than the direct conversion to USD.

austincheney2• 8 years ago

Before people comment too much about wage inequality consider for a moment that this ins't a feudal state where people are locked into role and wage limits outside their control.

I am a software developer for one of the larger companies and also an Army Reservist. When I go away to do Army stuff I frequently encounter people who work much harder and earn much less than I do in their civilian jobs. Is that fair? I would say, it doesn't matter.

I tell those people how being a software developer generally isn't super intense or stressful and you make all this money, but yet the people I tell this to generally don't want to write software. The disparity is that a senior software development position isn't immediately free like a dinner mint at the end of dinner. You have to practice writing software really hard and really invest your time into solving hard problems. In all my experience talking about wage inequality the ultimate disparity that always arises is time spent investing in yourself without any reasonable compensation.

EDIT: I did not start programming until age 28. I was already married and had two children.

Tyrek• 8 years ago

Sure, but you're omitting a crucial step - a relative minority of the population were actively enabled and were able to pursue their interests/self-invest/etc. when they were much younger (read: teenaged), which gave them a snowballing competitive advantage as they got older.

c2kc• 8 years ago

100%

zdragnar• 8 years ago

I didn't pursue programming as a hobby- and then a career- until later in life than what you are assuming here. In fact, I have worked with a number of people at multiple companies- their first programming jobs- who are older than me. They have all come from lower paying jobs. The key is that they put in effort to change.

One was raising two children- an infant and a toddler- and if he wasn't actively coding, he was reading or listening to something programming related.

For now, at least, programming is a highly sought-after skill, and with determination and effort, you can get into it. There really aren't any other barriers than (1) saving up for a cheap computer, and (2) having reliable internet access.

narrator• 8 years ago

The lie in America is that everyone is good at everything and those who don't succeed aren't trying hard enough. This lie is used to make people who aren't talented believe it's due to a moral failing or character flaw and thus talented people are morally superior.

vorpalhex3• 8 years ago

I'm a high paid software engineer. I also had amazing computer teachers and remember writing BASIC programs to play MIDI in elementary. I also have the advantage of living in the city, being a white male, and being young and social.

Being a software engineer requires a particular mindset, a lot of time and exposure, and people willing to support that. I was lucky enough to have all of the above, but most folks do not.

I'm in the midst of helping a friend who is currently a welder move into software engineering. He's extremely intelligent and has the brain for it, but it's also taken literal years, finding him a capable dev machine (a used macbook air, donated from another engineer), tutoring him (me and another engineer, going on for two years now), and now he's going to a bootcamp (which cost thousands of dollars he didn't have in his pocket).

He is still going to have to find an actual job and make the move from bootcamp to real life. That's another involved process that will require multiple people helping him.

And again, this is a young white male who has a very high aptitude for this.

It's a bit more work than "just invest in yourself!". The average computer user has difficulty searching their own email or resetting a password. Even those with natural aptitude require help - and not a trivial amount either.

el_cid• 8 years ago

And what you are proposing for your friend, after all these years of struggle for a better tomorrow - is to make the same amount of money as he did as a welder?

There are 2 sides to this. And the positive side of having something to work towards is usually not mentioned.

I can give you an example from Europe, in a country which is homogeneous ethnically. We all went to the same public schools and we had the same opportunities. At 30 - some of us make more than 10 times than others. There is no system of oppression which caused this. It was simply the market which has imposed this difference. And the market is at an equilibrium - because the people who earn higher wages, pay a LOT of money for healthcare, the social pension system and other social security things. If the gov would increase this further in order to close the "gap" between high earners and the have-nots/less, the high earners would just leave the country (they already do this to a degree).

Why not let the market decide? This is not about privilege and oppression and I am surprised that over the pond people have not learned from Europe's history.

There is also the side that by having a system in place that rewards effort - people strive for more everyday and this leads to prosperity. This country has been under communism and during those times no one was struggling for anything, because they were paid just the same.

nylonstrung• 8 years ago

I'm going to guess that the majority of people working in Amazon warehouses are well into adulthood, probably have kids, don't have above a high school education, and likely lack general computer literacy in the first place.

How should they move into software engineering?

baby3• 8 years ago

Does it mean these people should “survive” on such a salary? Is that what you are saying?

austincheney2• 8 years ago

In short, yes. If a person does not like that amount of money, which is well below a skilled profession, then they should feel sufficiently motivated to devote time to developing a skill. I know that may sound cold, but it is just a reflection of basic economics.

colek428• 8 years ago

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth. People are paid what the market will bear. $28k is about 13/hour. For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it. As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

gowld3• 8 years ago

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/enlisted-paygrades-and-ran...

says E1-E3 are for basic training and first assignment, and E4 is $25k/yr. Plus I suppose (not sure) that military has much better health insurance (and other benefits, like food and maybe housing?) than Amazon warehouse employees

ceejayoz• 8 years ago

I'd suspect the military jobs have substantially better job security, as well.

colek428• 8 years ago

Housing is usually a shared apartment on base with high restrictions. Kinda like a college dorm room with lots of rules. Heath care is okay, it is free, which is nice, but military hospitals sometimes do not attract the best and brightest. We had some issues over the years. You get about $300 or so for a food allowance each month unless you live on base, then you get crappy chow hall food.

colek428• 8 years ago

You will usually not make E4 until you hit your 3 year mark. The reg says you must have two years time in service. There are plenty of privates walking around Afghanistan right now.

smt882• 8 years ago

There is this false assumption that people are paid what they are worth.

Who thinks this? I don't know any adult who is that naive.

People are paid what the market will bear.

In many industries, the employer side of the market is vastly more powerful than the employee. The employer can just pass on an employee asking for too much money; an employee may be facing weeks without a job, which is difficult for most people to afford.

In those situations, the market can bear quite a bit more than it has to, which is the reason minimum-wage requirements don't kill most industries.

For places like East TN this is not a horrible wage, and you can live on it.

That's true if the government is protecting the employee with a safety nets, like welfare and ACA, and laws, like COBRA. A better-paid employee could save more money and provide their own safety net, as many high earners do with rainy-day accounts, investments, passive income, etc.

Because Amazon employees aren't necessarily saving enough to afford to build their own safety nets, taxpayers are effectively subsidizing Amazon.

As a comparison, an entry-level position in the military, E1, makes less even when you account for allowances.

I'm not sure this is apples-to-apples because military benefits are substantial, and the most major downside to military service (the risk of being sent into armed combat) is very difficult to put into monetary terms.

randyrand4• 8 years ago

Take an economics course. It should be eye opening. Honestly, it should be required reading for anyone that debates politics and economics.

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microec...

colek428• 8 years ago

That's true if the government is protecting the employee with a safety net, like welfare and ACA, and laws, like COBRA. A better-paid employee could save more money and provide their own safety net, as many high earners do with rainy-day accounts, investments, passive income, etc.

I personally would advocate taking away the safety net for able individuals and instituting a basic income. I think I would solve some of the market issues we are seeing with low wages. This will become more prevalent as automating gets cheaper.

randyrand4• 8 years ago

Here's the thing, people are worth what the market will bear.

ndespres• 8 years ago

I wish I could believe that you're being rhetorical, but it's evident by your other comments on this thread, and your handle, that your views are indeed as undistinguished and juvenile as they appear to be.

It's true that under capitalism, a laborer is only valued to the extent that their labor can be exploited to further the interest of capital, but it is incorrect to believe that this is the only possible system (it is not), or that it is somehow natural and correct (it is neither), or that the inherent value of Amazon's serfs is truly set by market forces (it is not) rather than the value of their own humanity.

Applauding Amazon or any multinational corporation for squeezing the maximum value out of workers is rather disgusting.

lotsofpulp3• 8 years ago

The definition of what something is worth is what the market will bear.

danShumway2• 8 years ago

That sounds like a tautology to me.

Most people do not define worth based on monetary cost; you are using a very narrow economic definition. If you can't get past that word, then please substitute "value", or "usefulness", or some other equivalent above.

pitaj• 8 years ago

No, that is the definition of price. Worth / value is subjective.

colek428• 8 years ago

I disagree, most things that are worth anything are priceless.

elicash6• 8 years ago

The first part of your comment relates to an ideological view I disagree with, but at least is a fair argument to make in advocating we go about our lives and not concern ourselves with issues of low pay -- that the market is self-correcting and best to leave it alone. And I'd argue we structure our society in the way that we think achieves the outcomes we want. A normal debate to have.

But it does bother me when workers are pitted against one another, like you pitting underpaid warehouse workers against the military. We see this a lot. Fast food workers should try to negotiate for higher pay because teachers make X. Etc etc. If you think military pay is too low, then argue for higher military pay.

colek428• 8 years ago

I think the pay is fair for the military. It is an entry-level job. I used it as an example since it is how I spent the first 10 years or so of my adulthood. Becuase I got paid crap and had horrible working conditions it gave me the motivation I needed to learn how to program computers. Now I am a highly paid SWE. If I was making 100k a year enlisted I would have never had the motivation to do what I am doing now.

swebs• 8 years ago

Here's the source report in question:

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9N...

sol_remmy3• 8 years ago

$14 an hour is not as bad as you think. Median nursing salary in England = 23300 pounds = 32300 usd. So the median amazon warehouse worker makes 87% of what the median nurse makes in the U.K. Is that really so bad?

Source on median salary: https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R...

songzme• 8 years ago

In the bay area, I'm currently paying 5 people 2k / mo and I've been paying them that much for about a year. They are incredibly hardworking and work about 12 hours / day. I mainly recruit from CalWorks (a public assistance program that provides cash aid and services to eligible families that have a child(ren) in the home), which is the same place that Amazon gets alot of their warehouse staff from.

Every-time I pay them, I feel a sense of guilt/discomfort. 2k / month is really hard to live on in the bay area, especially when you have kids. I want to pay them more, but its all I can afford with my current salary.

By "Work" they are learning and teaching each other JavaScript (Node, React, ReactNative, Vue, Redux, GraphQL) and building out some of my ideas. Hopefully they can find a job as a software engineer soon, it would change their lives permanently for the better!

sol_remmy3• 8 years ago

Don't forget that their cash assistance/stipend from CalWorks counts as part of their salary. So their real take home is 2k/month + monthly stipend.

You're doing incredible work though. You're allowing them to essentially apprenticeship with you to learn software development. Bravo sir

pg_bot2• 8 years ago

The headline falls into what I would characterize as a "useless fact". The number is meant to manipulate you into clicking the article based on the belief that Amazon is unfairly compensating its employees. While I'm not an advocate for Amazon's work practices, this article provides no further analysis than a copy pasted line from a financial report. We need more context and analysis if you actually want to understand whether that number is or is not unreasonable.

elicash6• 8 years ago

The number is meant to manipulate you into clicking the article based on the belief that Amazon is unfairly compensating its employees.

How is it manipulative to report on median pay for a company? This is as straightforwardly reported as possible, and not at all click-baity or manipulative. We shouldn't be afraid of basic facts that actually capture important information in an objective way. It's not a misleading number, it provides real insights into Amazon.

ddingus2• 8 years ago

Right.

Amazon, right along with other big players are not paying people well enough to make it.

Increasing numbers of them don't, and that costs all of us while eroding demand needed for the economy to grow and perform for all of us.

In a very real sense, failure to fund a better, more equitable, just standard of living means it won't exist at all.

Flat out, it is unacceptable to make billions while a majority are on public assistance.

pg_bot2• 8 years ago

The number itself is not misleading or incorrect, it is just useless. If I wrote an article with the lede "Amazon pays market rates for labor" no one would be interested in reading it. The manipulation is leading you to believe that this information is important or of any use in judging their employment practices, which it is not.

oliwarner• 8 years ago

Consider how much of the bottom tier is excluded by making drivers, cleaners, etc work as self employed contractors instead of "workers".

I can only imagine it shunts the median up a long way.

Amazon worker’s median pay in 2017: $28,446

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