still beats the Foxconn deal - $300K per $50K/year job :)
NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
121–130 of 359 posts
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#122Going to New York is a political move. They could have set up in the midwest, paid everyone 75% as much as the going rate in NY or silicon valley, and the employees would have 50% more expendable income than they are used to. This wasn't for the employees.
You say that as if spoiled tech workers are just going to line up to move to Columbus, Ohio where the only company operating at that scale is Amazon.
That is, you are going to be locked into working for Amazon to maintain your income level.
Not everyone is that mercenary about optimizing their income.
Amazon's hiring pool would be limited to midwestern Universities (e.g. Ohio State) + people looking to reduce their cost of living while working for Amazon + some people that prefer the scenery. Less people are optimizing purely based on compensation - CoL than you think.
To me, that's why these locales were never really in the running. I'm a native midwesterner and I feel bad for anyone trying to recruit a national audience for a midwestern role. You have to have really good sales skills.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#123The representation of this is a bit extreme here, but this is NY we're talking about. If this is the first thing that you're upset about paying for in NY, you probably have not been looking at the budget.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#1241) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given. 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not. 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and te…
>> 1) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given.
What is progress? How do you measure progress? Many politicians claim that the past decade was progress. I don't see it.
>> 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not.
Any business? I bet that the average entrepreneur living in NYC would disagree.
>> 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and tech education center.
Of course, because Amazon is such a generous corporation. Just ask politicians in Washington; they've also witnessed that incredible generosity first hand on many occasions.
>> 4) The NYC tech sector is more diverse than SV. 47% of tech workers in NYC are immigrants [0]. Is there any evidence supporting the claim that Amazon will ship in majority groups to displace minorities or immigrants?
This will affect real estate prices and will displace people who are living there right now who can already barely afford it.
>> 5) There is direct investment in tech education for minority groups in the city [1]. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that they will receive a chunk of these jobs in the future. If you support increased diversity in tech, it is inconsistent in your beliefs to not support 25k more tech jobs in NYC.
I don't buy these benevolent corporation arguments. Even if you assume that Jeff Bezos was a saint, I'm pretty sure that the many layers of selfish or apathetic middle-managers working under him will find a way to divert much of the funds back to themselves somehow.
>> 6) LIC built almost 2.8k rental units last year. [2] I think they have built 6k this year so far. 28k units were built city-wide last year [3]
Great in theory; but in practice, NYC is full of homeless people.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
That $10 billion likely assumes all new staff. There are going to be many current NYC citizens who simply switch jobs to Amazon. Therefore they won't contribute any incremental tax increase. Only if their previous employer rehires their position will a net new position be created.
I find it hard to believe that 25,000 people are moving jobs and their previous employers are saying "we're not replacing them."
Most will be replaced, and most of the replacements will also be locally sourced.
Company A creates a “new” job. They hire an employee of Company B, who in turn poaches a replacement from Company C, and so on.
It’s fair to assume that some hires will be new arrivals to NYC, and some might come from the pool of unemployed. Most will have simply hopped from one employer to the next, replacing one job opening with another.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#1261) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given. 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not. 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and te…
Ameritech/SBC, now AT&T, received, IIRC, circa $750 million in incentives to deploy universal access to high speed Internet throughout Illinois.
The ink was hardly dry when they turned around and lobbied the Illinois legislature to let them out of their side of the deal -- while keeping the incentives.
The current Foxcon deal in Wisconsin is looking more and more like Foxcon won't be coming through on all their rosy prognostications. Meanwhile, the SE corner of Wisconsin is all torn up, being rebuilt to accommodate them. In addition to all the other incentives.
And again, it will end up a struggle as to how much they get and what their ultimate deliverables will be.
And often as not, the public side of the equation is far outgunned in terms of very expensive and specialized lawyers.
I'd prefer my communities not even engage in this. Don't open that door. Focus on the people and businesses you already have, and on not screwing them for the sake of some outsider's "vision" -- especially when that "vision" is making said outside, and the local "development" talent they've recruited, very much richer.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#127This is such a great deal for NYC As the article says, they give up $1.5B over 10 years, but then get "Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years." I dont know where that comes from but the payroll and property taxes paid by 25k employees dwarves the incentives. The most important part is it cements NYC as the main tech center on the East Coast. That is invaluable. EDIT: I wonder if NYC…
I beg to differ. New York City doesn't have a problem attracting jobs. Like not even a little bit. The idea that this is actually incremental revenue for the city is extremely debatable. New York City is a really big place. Midtown is the largest central business district in the country, and Lower Manhattan is the third largest, after Chicago. There are 1,700,000 jobs in Manhattan alone and 3,900,000 in New York City…
My god, you're bitter for a startup founder! As a veteran founder myself, I'd be excited: this brings talent to fuel my startup, this brings interactive infrastructure, etc.
Amazon and Google are not regular employers: your startup pays outlets in taxes and mooches off infrastructure. The big companies find that with real profits.
Finally, $48k/employee is peanuts to a big city startup, and typically that kind of money is available from accelerator/etc programs.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#128This is such a great deal for NYC As the article says, they give up $1.5B over 10 years, but then get "Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years." I dont know where that comes from but the payroll and property taxes paid by 25k employees dwarves the incentives. The most important part is it cements NYC as the main tech center on the East Coast. That is invaluable. EDIT: I wonder if NYC…
I beg to differ. New York City doesn't have a problem attracting jobs. Like not even a little bit. The idea that this is actually incremental revenue for the city is extremely debatable. New York City is a really big place. Midtown is the largest central business district in the country, and Lower Manhattan is the third largest, after Chicago. There are 1,700,000 jobs in Manhattan alone and 3,900,000 in New York City…
Cuomo's just looking for new innovative ways to take money out of the MTA budget. The fact that there will be more people trying to ride the 7 train just puts icing on the cake.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know who you are referring to as NYC, but citizens of USA as a whole are worse off. Pitting one USA municipality against another to extract subsidy for what Amazon would do anyways is just another mechanism for wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.
It's not just money is it? It's also things like infrastructure they'll provide? Could that possibly make Amazon more efficient, and so employ more people who spend their salaries and so on, creating a net gain for the whole US?
All of that would be true in any other location. One could argue other locations actually need such infrastructure more. Amazon was not hiding the fact that they would build HQ2 anyways, and in USA. There was absolutely no need to donate them taxpayer money for it. And if you do, then taxpayer should own the infrastructure, with Amazon paying for use.
Re: NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job
#1301) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given. 2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not. 3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and te…
What about the externalities and expenses pointed out in a prior thread [0], specifically the ones not helped by federal funds in this post [1]? Will Amazon help to pay for the transit and housing required by their move? Because they're sure paying less than they would have if not for the incentives. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18443624 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18445241
Note, that first thread didn't point out any of the positive externalities GP did.