Amazon reports that its median employee pay last year was $28,446.
That data made public on Wednesday in the company’s annual report, is a reminder that even though tech workers and business managers at Amazon headquarters earn more than $100,000, across most of the country, Amazon offers blue-collar jobs where workers pack boxes and earn a whole lot less.
In Seattle, Amazon employs over 45,000 workers who are paid an average of more than $110,000, according to an analysis of Glassdoor data. Yet the median, or midpoint, of Amazon’s half-million employee salaries worldwide, stands a lot lower.
Within the dozens of logistics depots around the nation, entry-level work typically begins at $11 to $16 an hour, according to Amazon job postings and Glassdoor data.
CEO Jeff Bezos made $1,681,840 in 2017, $1.6 million of which represents the cost of providing his security. He receives the other $81,840 as a salary.
But that pay is mere pennies compared to the wealth Bezos has in company stock. Bezos owns 16% of the company’s shares, officially making him the richest man in the world with a net worth of $127 billion, according to Bloomberg.
This pay disclosure was required by the federal Wall Street reform bill that passed after the 2008 financial crisis in order to compare the top executive’s pay to the average workers.
By that measure, Amazon’s disparity between CEO and average worker pay stood at 59-to-1, a relatively small gap compared to most executive disparities. The data firm Equilar, which surveys companies on pay ratio, showed a median pay ratio of 140-to-1.
Amazon released a statement that it offers highly competitive wages and benefits “in every country and every sector where we employ people.”
The pay data represents both full-time and temporary workers, though Amazon has noted that the vast majority of workers with the company are full-time. For part-time labor and those who didn’t work the full year, the company annualized their pay in order to include them in the final metrics.