{"id":1108,"date":"2025-09-17T17:48:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T17:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2025-09-18T14:25:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T14:25:50","slug":"amazon-spends-1-billion-to-increase-pay-and-lower-health-care-costs-for-us-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/amazon-spends-1-billion-to-increase-pay-and-lower-health-care-costs-for-us-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon spends $1 billion to increase pay and lower health care costs for US workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By ANNE D\u2019INNOCENZIO, AP Retail Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Amazon says it\u2019s making a $1 billion investment to raise wages and lower the cost of health care plans for its U.S. fulfillment and transportation workers.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related left\">\n<h2 class=\"widget-title\" data-curated-ids=\"\" data-relation-type=\"automatic-primary-section\">Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/18\/starbucks-dress-code-lawsuits\/\" title=\"Starbucks workers in Colorado sue over company\u2019s new dress code\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tStarbucks workers in Colorado sue over company\u2019s new dress code\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/18\/corporate-25-centennial-nexgen-properties\/\" title=\"Greenwood Village-based real estate firm acquires Corporate 25 office campus in Centennial\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tGreenwood Village-based real estate firm acquires Corporate 25 office campus in Centennial\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/18\/orchard-town-center-westminster\/\" title=\"The Orchard Town Center in Westminster adding new tenants this fall, winter\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tThe Orchard Town Center in Westminster adding new tenants this fall, winter\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/18\/denver-wash-park-home-preservation-push-fails\/\" title=\"Preservation push for Wash Park home fails to advance to Denver City Council\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tPreservation push for Wash Park home fails to advance to Denver City Council\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/09\/17\/real-estate-fund-adviser-tom-vukota-investors\/\" title=\"Real estate fund adviser will pay $9.7M for allegedly misleading investors\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tReal estate fund adviser will pay $9.7M for allegedly misleading investors\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The Seattle-based company said Wednesday the average pay is increasing to more than $23 per hour and said that some of its most tenured employees will see an increase between $1.10 and $1.90 per hour. Full-time employees, on average, will see their pay increase by $1,600 per year.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon also said it was lowering the cost of its entry health care plan to $5 per week and $5 for co-pays, starting next year. Amazon said that will reduce weekly contributions by 34% and co-pays by 87% for primary care, mental health and most non-specialist visits for employees using the basic plan.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon has a global workforce of 1.5 million workers.<\/p>\n<p>Last December, seven Amazon facilities <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/video\/amazon-com-inc-new-york-queens-new-york-city-labor-c88e88d9e91f4a89821499355204265c\">went on strike<\/a>, an effort by the Teamsters union to pressure the e-commerce company <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/amazon-teamsters-delivery-union-ups-0b9a9e2fc06dbb18cb23c476e0c19230\">for a labor agreement<\/a> during a key shopping period.<\/p>\n<p>That same month, Amazon reached a settlement with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osha.gov\/news\/newsreleases\/osha-national-news-release\/20241219\">Occupational Safety and Health Administration<\/a> that requires the online behemoth to adopt corporatewide ergonomic measures at facilities across the country. The agency claimed hazardous working conditions led to serious lower back and other musculoskeletal disorders at Amazon facilities.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2024, Walmart, the nation\u2019s largest private employer, said that <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/walmart-managers-retail-pay-bonus-a4fe026c88de429e849a2abeacc9cb1c\">average wages for hourly workers would exceed $18, up from $17.50.<\/a> The increase was due to Walmart introducing some higher-paying hourly roles in its Auto Care Centers last year, among other changes, the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Walmart had announced in January 2023 that U.S. workers would get <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/business-a18b282e2e2097954b4680984a5e0659\">pay raises<\/a> the following month, increasing starting wages to between $14 and $19 an hour. Starting wages had previously ranged between $12 and $18 an hour, depending on location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By ANNE D\u2019INNOCENZIO, AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Amazon says it\u2019s making a $1 billion investment to raise wages and lower the cost of health care plans for its U.S. fulfillment and transportation workers. Related Articles Starbucks workers in Colorado sue over company\u2019s new dress code Greenwood Village-based real estate firm acquires Corporate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1108\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.agencywebdesigners.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}