Amazon to Pay $500M in Bonuses for Front-Line Workers, Delivery Partners

Some numbers to put this into perspective:

A $500 bonus for one month of full time 40/hr/week work comes out to ~$3.20/hr "raise" for the month of June. Amazon minimum pay is $15/hr, so this bonus is effectively a ~20% raise for one month.

Amazon Q1 profits were $2.5 billion, or ~$620 million averaged per month. Spending $500 million on this bonus is ~80% of "monthly" profits.

This is a situation where I suppose I do have to give props to Amazon for giving a bonus that's well above the status quo (a 20% raise and spending 80% of profits on pay raises is nothing to sneeze at), but at the same time, $500 still seems paltry.

Details: "Full-time employees at Amazon, its Whole Foods Market business and drivers in its contracted delivery program will receive $500, while those in part-time positions will receive $250, Mr. Clark said.

Leaders at Amazon and Whole Foods will receive a $1,000 bonus, and owners running contracted delivery-service operations will get $3,000, he said. Amazon will also pay $150 to some drivers working through another one of the company’s initiatives."