… and that was Amazon’s problem. They chose poorly as to what cities they went to. NYC doesn’t really care about the jobs, because they have plenty. That would have been a boom to Columbus, OH; which would desperately like more jobs.
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Why does New York need more jobs? Is it hurting for work? Are they really bringing anything that other companies don’t?
In Seattle, Amazon plunked itself smack dab in the middle of the South Lake Union area (Yes I know they’re local, yes they could have still picked anywhere else to setup HQ), a part of the city known for bad traffic and turned it from bad to worse pretty quickly by adding a bunch of jobs that Seattle frankly didn’t need. On top of that, it’s a very monoculture setup - one big company tends to build one big culture and doesn’t bring the sort of vitality that 25k jobs from a bunch of different companies would bring. See all the articles about how women dating in Seattle are sick of dating techies.
And again, as people mention all the time, big tech companies can afford to hire from wherever. People will move themselves to work for Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. They do all the time, I’ve seen it and interviewed people for it. Sure, it’s convenient to hire local talent, but so many of the workers are from out of state or even out of the country. So that 25k isn’t even entirely local jobs - I can’t hazard a guess at to how much it is.
And then you have the whole ‘TAX INCENTIVES’ problem that everyone’s been talking about, where the whole point that a city would want 25k more jobs is because of the economical advantages that brings an area. Well, throw a lot of THAT away because now you’ve not only attracted a major tech company (all famous for not paying their fair share of taxes/etc), but you’ve made it clear to them that you’re willing to bend over backwards to alleviate what tax burden remains.
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What I would like to know is if New York is going to charge them a restocking fee.
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New York probably isn’t.
But the country isn’t New York and San Francisco. There are a lot of places where getting a new call center or warehouse is seen as a very happy good thing because it will bring 500 jobs into a region where people need work.
The city will still tax the 25K people. The state will still tax them. If they cut the taxes on Amazon in half, that’s still half more tax revenue than they would have otherwise gotten, in addition to the payroll taxes. If only 5K of those people are locals when they are hired, that means 20K more residents plus another 20-30K in additional residents from their family members; that means more people shopping in the stores and eating in the restaurants and spending money in stores in the area. (In addition to the whole expanding local commerce, it’s also all taxed. Win win.)
I’ll talk about Columbus because I can literally see where they were going to put HQ2 from where I’m sitting right now. It would have needed more public transit - something that a lot of people have wanted for a long, long time; so finally getting the city to cough up for that is a bonus. It would have pinched housing a little bit, depending on how fast they ramped up… but we have a lot of housing and a lot of space to build more. It would have needed better interstates; but we need those anyway; so getting them to force them to repair our infrastructure that we need repaired anyway is a big “oh, no, not that” moment.
Downsides: it would have driven more gentrification of inner-circle neighborhoods and it would have caused more congestion on the highways until they could catch up. Other than that, it would have caused the problems that doubling growth for 5-10 years would have caused; but these would have been good problems to have, honestly.
For a lot of the country, more growth is a good thing. In Columbus, we only have to look northward to see what happens to a city when it doesn’t have growth; the decay of the rust belt is something we really don’t want to do. Jobs that are not environmentally devastating are definitely nice.
Amazon isn’t choosing a location based on wanting a big plot of empty land to construct some buildings with maximum tax breaks. They’re looking for a location with infrastructure, an existing skilled labor force, access to markets, a ready supply of available housing, appropriate local businesses that fulfill their needs… Which means the kind of community that “desperately” needs more jobs is exactly the sort of place where they don’t want to move.
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And this is how Amazon does blackmail. Next place they decide to open a warehouse or even a transit point, in somewhere that is more desperate for jobs, they’ll point to this and say “give us what we want, no negotiations, or we walk.”
Good on New York for being not just able, but willing to say “Go ahead. Walk.” Unfortunately, other places may not be so bold.
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Yeah the only benefit even Amazon was claiming was adding a couple hundred jobs per month to a city that regularly hits 10k added jobs per month.
And in really short order the worries that the plan as set out would lead to hundreds of thousands of workers being priced out of the area, started to come true. There were speculation driven spikes in real estate prices throughout Long Island and parts of NJ too.
NYC effectively has a labor shortage because the city is so unlivable.
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So that’s what happened with Kyrsten Sinema. I didn’t see the unicycle, though.
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To be fair, I agree that it would be a lot better for smaller cities or cities that could use the boost…but those cities would need to promise a lot in tax incentives, and then would have Amazon there ready to basically bend them over the barrel for everything. Even a bigger city like Seattle fucking lost their spines on the city council suddenly when Amazon didn’t want to pay the new corporate head tax.
Amazon needs to be showing up with a plan on their end for what they’re going to bring to the city, not just JOBS handwaving furiously. Show that they’re willing to actually partner with the city to bring some infrastructure improvements/etc.
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Exactly right. Amazon, this is New York. You didn’t bring a big enough bucket of grease.
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Here’s the thing. You need New York more than New York needs you. You want New York, you gotta pay for New York. When amazon says they want tax rebates New York City should be saying “nah, you’re gonna pay full tax. and also if you wanna move here we want you to pay extra for the housing and transportation issues your company will exacerbate.”
And the reality is, if amazon did move in, paid full taxes and gave the unions and the city what they wanted they would still do great and make money. New York should know that and should not cave to demands for incentives.
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Some years ago, there was a book called “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” whose author came all over dumbfounded about how the rubes in the midwest kept voting for God and guns rather than for their economic best interests.
What we’re seeing here is in part the same thing. A lot of New Yorkers opposing this because they don’t like Amazon and what they see it as representing. The numbers just aren’t good enough to overcome that dislike.
The point being that “It’s the economy, stupid” goes only so far. Both the left and the right will vote their values over their pocketbooks.
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