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This is going to be a shock to all of those people who were willing to give tax incentives for Amazon to build distribution warehouses in their city in exchange

This is going to be a shock to all of those people who were willing to give tax incentives for Amazon to build distribution warehouses in their city in exchange for "jobs." Though, this is only the beginning. A few thousand jobs now, the majority of them later.

xkjkls 7y ago
Most of those tax breaks have specific empployment figures associated with them.
- bobberkarl 7y ago
  Bu there's no penalty if this target are not met.
  - cies 7y ago
    Or the penalty is "cheap" aka worth it.
  - javagram 7y ago
    Aren’t the tax breaks often tied directly to the number of jobs? I believe that’s how the incentive structure for Amazon’s new NoVA headquarters works for instance. If the company doesn’t create the job, the tax break is reduced by a certain percentage per job.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Aren’t the tax breaks often tied directly to the number of jobs? Usually, no, though the public justification for the tax breaks is usually in terms of expected jobs.
      - WillPostForFood 7y ago
        This is false, there are almost always specific job number requirements that must be met to be eligible for tax credits or the credits are tightly tied to hiring. The Joliet, IL Amazon warehouse incentive deal is a typical example. Amazon can credit employee withholding taxes against corporate income tax. If there are no employees hired, then there is no withholding tax, and no tax credit.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    All of these situations are unique, but most of the time the benefits are awarded on a per job basis. So if the plan is to hire 2000 people, the reward will end up being divyied out depending on how many of the 2000 people are hired.
cameronbrown 7y ago
They seem to be trying to convert these lost employees into "delivery companies"[0]. As much as I dislike the Uberfication of the world, seems like a clever way of shifting human capital from warehouse to delivery. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/amazon-to-employees-quit-your-job-well-help-you-start-a-delivery-business/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/amazo...
crazygringo 7y ago
How do you know overall jobs will decrease? It's also totally possible that each warehouse will be made twice as efficient per employee... but also deliver twice the merchandise... maintaining the same total number of jobs. Kind of the same way that automation of the past 100 years across the economy has still resulted in record-setting employment right now.
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  Curiously, what does the homelessness & (true, ie not unemployment) jobless rate look like in that graph? Of course though, they're tough metrics. More importantly though, we're on the cusp of some pretty hairy water. Imagine we drop all of the truck drivers, taxi drivers, Uber and Lift drivers tomorrow. How many millions of people will that be - where can they go? I'm not against automation in the slightest, but to think it won't have an impact on employment seems farfetched. Imagine a robot tomorrow, humanoid capable of basic tasks. How many millions of people would that displace almost instantly? I don't think the past 100 years even remotely indicates how we'll handle this as a society. We aren't talking about taking away one job. We're talking about taking away a skill category. No more drivers. No more basic manual labor. And that's not even talking about how growth would need to expand to handle the increase in workforce. Imagine our workforce doubles tomorrow - who is going to consume it all? Do we even want more consumption? I don't think it's as cut and dry as looking at the street cleaners and how they handled it when horses stopped being used transportation. We're talking about fundamentally categories of work becoming obsolete, and having no jobs that some people qualify for. With that said, I'm curious to live in a world where the population is forced to be educated. No low skilled jobs might have a benefit of (basically) no low educated people. However I am worried about how it will affect the current populace.
  - tomjen3 7y ago
    Looking at the state of my apartment I could really use a fulltime maid/cook. I can't afford that right now, but if the difference between the average income for the low income group and the high income group goes up enough, that would be a possibility (assuming computer programmers continue to get paid a high income, whereas maids do not).
jhall1468 7y ago
It shouldn't be a shock. There's overwhelming data supporting the idea that tax incentives for low paying jobs never end up paying for themselves.

xkjkls 7y ago

Most of those tax breaks have specific empployment figures associated with them.

bobberkarl 7y ago
Bu there's no penalty if this target are not met.
- cies 7y ago
  Or the penalty is "cheap" aka worth it.
- javagram 7y ago
  Aren’t the tax breaks often tied directly to the number of jobs? I believe that’s how the incentive structure for Amazon’s new NoVA headquarters works for instance. If the company doesn’t create the job, the tax break is reduced by a certain percentage per job.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Aren’t the tax breaks often tied directly to the number of jobs? Usually, no, though the public justification for the tax breaks is usually in terms of expected jobs.
    - WillPostForFood 7y ago
      This is false, there are almost always specific job number requirements that must be met to be eligible for tax credits or the credits are tightly tied to hiring. The Joliet, IL Amazon warehouse incentive deal is a typical example. Amazon can credit employee withholding taxes against corporate income tax. If there are no employees hired, then there is no withholding tax, and no tax credit.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  All of these situations are unique, but most of the time the benefits are awarded on a per job basis. So if the plan is to hire 2000 people, the reward will end up being divyied out depending on how many of the 2000 people are hired.

cameronbrown 7y ago

They seem to be trying to convert these lost employees into "delivery companies"[0]. As much as I dislike the Uberfication of the world, seems like a clever way of shifting human capital from warehouse to delivery. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/amazon-to-employees-quit-your-job-well-help-you-start-a-delivery-business/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/amazo...

crazygringo 7y ago

How do you know overall jobs will decrease? It's also totally possible that each warehouse will be made twice as efficient per employee... but also deliver twice the merchandise... maintaining the same total number of jobs. Kind of the same way that automation of the past 100 years across the economy has still resulted in record-setting employment right now.

asdkhadsj 7y ago
Curiously, what does the homelessness & (true, ie not unemployment) jobless rate look like in that graph? Of course though, they're tough metrics. More importantly though, we're on the cusp of some pretty hairy water. Imagine we drop all of the truck drivers, taxi drivers, Uber and Lift drivers tomorrow. How many millions of people will that be - where can they go? I'm not against automation in the slightest, but to think it won't have an impact on employment seems farfetched. Imagine a robot tomorrow, humanoid capable of basic tasks. How many millions of people would that displace almost instantly? I don't think the past 100 years even remotely indicates how we'll handle this as a society. We aren't talking about taking away one job. We're talking about taking away a skill category. No more drivers. No more basic manual labor. And that's not even talking about how growth would need to expand to handle the increase in workforce. Imagine our workforce doubles tomorrow - who is going to consume it all? Do we even want more consumption? I don't think it's as cut and dry as looking at the street cleaners and how they handled it when horses stopped being used transportation. We're talking about fundamentally categories of work becoming obsolete, and having no jobs that some people qualify for. With that said, I'm curious to live in a world where the population is forced to be educated. No low skilled jobs might have a benefit of (basically) no low educated people. However I am worried about how it will affect the current populace.
- tomjen3 7y ago
  Looking at the state of my apartment I could really use a fulltime maid/cook. I can't afford that right now, but if the difference between the average income for the low income group and the high income group goes up enough, that would be a possibility (assuming computer programmers continue to get paid a high income, whereas maids do not).

jhall1468 7y ago

It shouldn't be a shock. There's overwhelming data supporting the idea that tax incentives for low paying jobs never end up paying for themselves.