Jeff Bezos Announces $2 Billion Philanthropic Effort To Help Homeless Families and Start Preschools in Low-income Communities (nbcnews.com) 146
Rick Schumann writes: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie on Thursday announced a $2 billion philanthropic effort aimed at helping homeless families and starting preschools in low-income communities. Bezos, believed to be the world's richest man, with a net worth of more than $160 billion, announced the new program on Twitter. "We're excited to announce the Bezos Day One Fund," he wrote. The fund will be split between the Day 1 Families Fund, which Bezos wrote will "issue annual leadership awards to organizations and civic groups doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the immediate needs of young families." The Day 1 Academies Fund "will launch and operate a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities," Bezos said. Bezos said that the preschools will be directly operated by the organization and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon." "Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession," Bezos wrote. "The child will be the customer." Bezos quoted the poet William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
LOL. (Score:5, Insightful)
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In 2017 Amazon had a total of 566K [statista.com] employees. Various estimates [businessinsider.com] claim, as many as 10% of them are on Food Stamps — or living with someone, who is. That makes for 56.6K people.
Dividing half of the $2 billion pledged by Bezos over the 56600 amounts to a rather generous $17+K per person...
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But it doesn't get the tax write off that way
Haha, actually it's the other way around (Score:3)
That was funny.
Of course in reality it's the other way around. Amazon and Bezos pay more taxes this way.
Whoever hands out the money doesn't pay income taxes on it. If Amazon gave the money to employees as paychecks, then Amazon wouldn't pay income taxes on it.*
What they've done instead is Bezos is giving it away AFTER Amazon already paid taxes on it and then distributed it to shareholders (Bezos). So Amazon made money, paid the corporate income tax, distributed it to shareholders, then Bezos gave away some
Retained earnings increase stockholder equity (Score:2)
That's true. What Amazon has done is retain the earnings, meaning the company increases in value. That means each share of stock increases in value. Retained earnings are of course taxable profit, so the tax situation comes out the same as a dividend when Bezos liquidates some of the stock value to make a charitable contribution.
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I read here that $25/hr was a good wage in the 1950's...
$50K/yr (40 hr/wk x 50 weeks/year = $50K/year) would have been a VERY good wage in 1950s - the average was more like $5K/yr which, adjusted for inflation would be $25/hr today.
modern people are expected to work 40+ hours a week to get less than 1/3rd of that.
No, they aren't. Median income in US is $61K - that means half of all Americans earn more than $61K, half less.
In America we've redefined "full time" to be 30+ hours/wk, which means part-time employees are only able to work 29 or fewer hours/week lest they be considered full-time employees and cost their employer mandated insurance su
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That's a one-time gift, then the $2BN is gone, and the net change is what?
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Half of the recipients probably will be Amazon employees.
Oh come on, there's plenty of Wal-Mart employees that could qualify too...
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Oh come on, there's plenty of Wal-Mart employees that could qualify too...
Difference is walmart pays over the minimum wage and offers healthcare insurance to PT and FT employees, and gives them upto 20%(people who are struggling financially can get even higher discounts) off in store purchases and that counts for everything from the cellphone kiosk to the McD's or other fast/food loctions, amazon only offers 10% on their own items or none at all. That's in Canada and the US. You can bash them however much you want, but in general they're far better as a 'corporate citizen' then
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You can't pay under the minimum wage. Stores have been caught, indeed but that's not their corporate policy either, stores that have been caught doing that have had their entire management staff terminated. Every person from the lowly floor manager right up to the person in charge of the store. The store closures though? No that's shady, there was a case in Quebec where they attempted to unionize and they simply shut it down. Walmart got sued over it, they've lost every case on it. Simply put? It's stil
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Who is praising the Kochs, Muroch, or Trump here, outside of obvious trolls?
The answer is simple. You can't have an amount of wealth that couldn't possibly be earned without drawing plenty of legitimate criticism.
idea (Score:5, Interesting)
He could give his employees decent salaries. That would help.
Re:idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon has 566,000 employees (source [seattletimes.com]).
A cynic would say that is only a one time payout of ~$3,533 per employee. A realist would understand that only the bottom rungs of the income ladder should get this money, so let's redo the math:
Amazon has "125,000 full-time hourly associates in the U.S" (source [curbed.com]).
Now it's a one time payout of $16,000!
A "warehouse associate" earns ~$13/hr (source [glassdoor.com]).
That is a staggering (/s) $27,040 per year.
Does Bezos really think that the overhead of starting, yet another, charity and its administrative costs is cheaper than just giving his lowest level employees a decent living wage?
This announcement says, yes, he does think that. But you say, that's just stupid.
So a then you would say, who benefits?
(source [nbcnews.com])
"The child will be the customer."...
In the age of DeVos, Bezos is going to open private charter schools, for the youngest among us, and run them like a business, but the difference is that the "child will be the customer".
Smell something?
Would someone learn the likes and dislikes of these children and slowly build an "anonymized" ad profile for that child, following them throughout their life span, knowing exactly what products they are likely and not likely to buy?
Now the decision to pass over that wage increase and open a "charity" makes sense.
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Maybe he sees down the road a bit further than just doling out a one time bonus that will only make a temporary impact on some employees.
Low income community youth suffer a great disadvantage when it comes to pre-school development. They struggle to catch up once school starts. Finding ways to get more of these kids into a positive environment sooner in life may be the thing the break the vicious cycle for more of them.
But hey, let's let the warehouse workers party and get new cars instead.
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Do you seriously think this $2 billion is all he will give to these charities and that this $2 billion is all these charities will ever need?
If so, then this an even bigger con.
If not, then you've answered your own question. Any money going to further support these charities could be use to make that one-time payout a permanent wage increase.
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Nah, man, you're just trolling.
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What continues to surprise me is that the warehouse workers simply haven't revolted over this. This is Canada, but it seems more and more that there's simply a lack of employees wanting to do something over it. Back in the 90's, I did a stint at a small company warehouse. These guys were small, had 3 plants in Canada, 2 in the US, 1 in Europe. The min. wage was around $7/hr, I was making $13/hr the second I walked in the door with no experience. A decade ago when I wanted to earn some extra money, I di
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It's not a lack of desire. It's a lack of power. If the employees depend upon their job for their livelihood, it's really, really hard for any of them to speak out about it. Employee protections in Washington (as in most of the US) are pretty bare, so it's not hard at all for Amazon to fire its workers here. So yes, many Amazon workers are finding it very, very difficult. But the employees also feel that they don't have other options.
One major issue is that most people who work at close to minimum wage
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I'm pretty sure that if minimum wages increased enough, one of the main effects of that increase would be an increase in worker bargaining.
Doesn't work out like that sadly. We just saw that here in Ontario, the previous government bumped the minimum wage up fast, first quarter of implementation and we lost ~80k jobs. Second quarter ~68k jobs. New hires over both quarters? 7k jobs FT, no PT. That means there's ~141k people out there now earning less money because companies cut back on the number of people employed.
Oh and round it out with the giant shitshow of Trudeau and Co., and NAFTA? BNN is now estimating ~690k job losses over the next
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These guys should learn from Ford who doubled pay and reduced hours -- you make your workers happy they will come around and work harder for the company, less turnover, less sick days, etc.
Double-edge sword (Score:1)
If these extremely wealthy folks would take a smaller salary and bay better or employ more, would homeless be as bad as it is today? Im sure its been worse throughout history but today we have the ability to end hunger and provide adequate shelter and meet most medical needs.
Yet wr keep fighting wars to protect these bery rich folks and wallstreet.
Maybe its not that simple but seems to be.
Re: Double-edge sword (Score:1)
The problem is bigger than you think - if you took all the money from 'the rich' and used it to help the poor/homeless it would work, until a year or two after starting 'the rich' will run out of money to fund this.
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I said "if", I was pointing out that even if you took all the money "the rich" have you couldn't address the problem permanently.
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if you took all the money from 'the rich' and used it to help the poor/homeless it would work, until a year or two after starting 'the rich' will run out of money to fund this.
If you took all the money from the rich and used it to help the poor, the rich would have it all back within a year or two because they own everything and the poor would spend their money with their businesses.
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Im sure its been worse throughout history but today we have the ability to end hunger and provide adequate shelter and meet most medical needs.
A good chunk of the homeless population (at least in the U.S.) are the kind of people with some form of mental illness who would have been institutionalized. However, there were some major shifts in public opinion regarding psychiatric hospitals and mental health institutions, particularly in the 70's for a variety of reasons, but this lead to a lot of these being closed without a lot of forethought or planning into new resources for handling the problem. This invariably led to a big spike in homelessness.
Re:Double-edge sword (Score:4, Insightful)
The first group is not something that "the rich" can solve, and they can't really solve the second either.
That's exactly what the second group of people need. An opportunity to find work and earn a living and a place to stay while finding and applying for job positions.
Actually, "the rich" can, or at least we as a society can. Utah has had a lot of success giving the homeless exactly this - basic housing while they get back on their feet. It's cheaper, on the whole, than the police, ER, and jail costs that we would otherwise incur. It's not a silver bullet (nothing ever is) but there are meaningful policy steps that we can take to improve the situation.
Start with your own workers first (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wow. The workers choose to go in bottles because their non-Amazon employers have them on unreasonable schedules, not because Jeff Bezos denies them bathrooms.
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Temp companies are used for throwaway workforce, which is another bad thing.
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Not in Newark, NJ - Mark Z. gave them $100M and it's all better now!
And let's not forget how Obama and his domestic terrorist neighbor Ayres whipped the schools in the south side of Chicago into shape with all that Annenberg money.
do what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."
So slave labor, minimum wage, shit working conditions...
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and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."
So slave labor, minimum wage, shit working conditions...
You beat me to it. I bet those preschool teachers are going to be hating life!
Private charity is genocide! (Score:1, Troll)
That's true, so true! The only true philanthropy is that by the kind, benevolent, and omniscient government officials redistributing the wealth confiscated at gunpoint from captive taxpayers. Right?
More NGO stuff. Goody. (Score:3)
Lets make everything Haiti.
I Mean (Score:5, Insightful)
This is great. Now other people in need can benefit from Bezos' magnanimity, just like his warehouse employees do.
He makes $260 million every day (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fed up with ultra rich trying to buy us off with token charitable donation in the hopes we don't demand they take care of their workers. He can start by paying his employees enough that they're not living in the parking lot of his warehouses (excuse me, "fullfillment centers") and they can get off food stamps. Then let's see him give enough to charity that it actually impacts his quality of life.
As it stands I feel like we're being made to go begging to the rich for the basic things needed to run a country and a society...
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He does not make $260M/day - that's asinine, $260M x 365 days/year = $94BN/year
You are confusing his stock appreciation with salary/bonuses. Unrealized earnings aren't income.
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America pays CEOs in stock (Score:2)
I am by no means clueless. I'm fully aware of how our distorted economy works. I'm also aware of what Bezo's is doing. Be
Re: Alvinrod doesn't even have a job besides dick (Score:2)
Bullshit, the richest pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the poorest by a factor of magnitudes.
The poorest pay zero. What's "a factor of magnitudes" smaller percentage than zero?
No, they do not (Score:3)
Re: No, they do not (Score:2)
the poorest still pay sales tax, often when they buy food and medicine
Yeah, that really cuts into their food stamps and welfare cheque.
I think you're confused about who is actually paying those taxes.
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Yo, Jeff! (Score:2)
I think he was misquated (Score:2)
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This man is pathetic, just another would-be American aristocrat throwing his money around
...and spending it on something the ones standing in judgement of him refuse to - education for the poorest among us. If the taxpayers were properly funding public school education there wouldn't be a need for someone like Bezos to step in and donate...
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There is no level of 'proper public school funding'. It's always 'more'.
The city of Minneapolis currently employs 1 adult for every 5 children, yet nearly half of their classrooms are considered overcrowded (30+).
And then there's crap like this in Wyoming:
https://www.openthebooks.com/b... [openthebooks.com]
Public schools are like any other government operation, extremely top heavy, "underfunded" and shit for service. The only thing that keeps them open are young bleeding heart teachers that are willing to work themselves to d
Won't change a thing Jeff (Score:2)
you'll still be an asshole.
Just a slightly less rich one.
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And a whole lot of teachers will be hired, classrooms will be built, and the poorest among us, for a while, will have a slightly better shot at "making it" than they did before he gave the money.
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And a whole lot of teachers will be hired, classrooms will be built, and the poorest among us, for a while, will have a slightly better shot at "making it" than they did before he gave the money.
But ... but ... where in that scenario do I get to pontificate from my high horse??
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Why? He's giving a small percentage of his wealth to help the poorest among us - that seems very "un-prick like" to me. Why is there a need for this? Why haven't the taxpayers in each community focused more money on these groups?
Sure, it's only 1/80th of his calculated net worth of $160 BN, but even that low percentage is more than 47% of US tax filers pay in income taxes (which would be ZERO, as in they get a refund that exceeds the taxes withheld from their paychecks the previous year).
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Are those Amazon employees or employees of contractors? People like to hold Bezos personally responsible for what other people pay their employees.
This seems counterproductive (Score:2)
Livable Wages (Score:4, Interesting)
Think of it this way, you could give EVERY SINGLE AMAZON employee (all 563,000) a one time bonus of $177,500, and Bezos would still be worth $63 Billion dollars.
How much does a king need?
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https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/3... [cnbc.com]
Bezos refused to sign (as did Bloomberg). They are greedy self serving pigs.
Re: Livable Wages (Score:3)
Think of it this way, you could give EVERY SINGLE AMAZON employee (all 563,000) a one time bonus of $177,500, and Bezos would still be worth $63 Billion dollars.
No, he would be worth roughly zero dollars as the value of his stock plummeted, half the workforce quit, and the company went tits up.
When I get rich, I'm going to help the smart kids (Score:1)
Poor kids from shitty schools get all the attention. But no one ever gives a shit about smart kids. Everyone just assumes the smart kids don't need any help. But think of how high they could sore if we stopped focusing on helping some poor kid from the ghetto who's probably never even going to college and started focusing on the kids who might actually cure cancer one day.
So fuck all that feel-good/virtue-signalling shit, I'm banking on the smart kids who might actually provide society with something useful
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And yes, I'm pretty sore about it.
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Smart is not the opposite of poor. You are making a huge assumption there that a poor kid can't be smart. I obviously can't speak for every school system. But even the broke as hell school system where I live has special educational tracks laid out for the smart kids to follow. Hell, they even have entire schools that are dedicated to just the smart kids. Additionally when it comes to getting into and paying for college the smart kids are by and large always at an advantage over their peers.
If you were half
Children are the customers? (Score:2)
Re: Children are the customers? (Score:2)
Re: Children are the customers? (Score:2)
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If Mr. Bezos wants to help education in America I say more power to him. We can use all the help we can get.
If Mr. Bezos wants to help education in America, he can pay a living wage. Then the parents will have time to pay attention to their children.
Not spending it on something pointless (Score:2)
I need to build a new bike; wonder if I can hit him up for $1500? Seems like he could afford it..
Very bad idea (Score:2)
Making kids "the customers" was tried in Britain. Standards have collapsed, costs have skyrocketed, the teaching profession has gone from being respected to being scorned.
Academies in Britain are amongst the worst schools. Even allowing for their efforts to rig exam rankings, they're still behind state schools. And this is to be expected, education is either about money or it is about learning. It cannot be about both. And if it is about money, it will always be inferior.
Amazon's principles (Score:3)
Bezos said that the preschools will be directly operated by the organization and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."
You mean, like employee burn out?
Come one, if you want to fix education, just pay your taxes so that schools get more money.
Abuse/gaming (Score:1)
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Here in Australia, a number of well-meaning public projects have been derailed because they had loopholes that allowed gaming of the scheme by beneficiaries, or were gamed or abused by insiders. I hope Bezos includes a lot of checks and balances in this scheme.
It's not easy when it's the politicians doing the gaming, on behalf of themselves - either through donations back to their party, or as jobs after they finally get booted out for their blatant corruption and/or incompetence.
To name a few:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... [abc.net.au]
https://www.news.com.au/financ... [news.com.au]
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.... [brisbanetimes.com.au]
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.... [brisbanetimes.com.au]
https://www.computerworld.com.... [computerworld.com.au]