Amazon invested nearly $34 billion in the U.S. in 2020
Today, the Progressive Policy Institute released it’s annual Investment Heroes report, which highlights the strong capital spending performance by major tech-broadband-ecommerce capital companies in 2020. Amazon, the top Investment Hero, invested a stunning $33.8 billion in the United States in 2020, which is a record for the 10 years that PPI has published the annual report.
“Our Investment Heroes report shows stunning and unprecedented investment by these major American companies – despite the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis it caused last year. Without this investment, our economy would be worse off, and even more Americans would be out of jobs.
“This report shows how the tech-broadband-ecommerce sector is driving economic growth and jobs. This isn’t the time to limit the productivity and success of these companies – this is the time to applaud them. They are our true investment heroes,” said report author Dr. Michael Mandel.
Amazon’s capital investment performance illustrates just how critical the tech-broadband-ecommerce sector has been to keeping Americans on the payroll and propping up the economy. Eight out of the top 10 companies in the Investment Heroes ranking —Amazon, Verizon, AT&T, Alphabet, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft and Comcast—are in the tech, ecommerce, and broadband sectors. The willingness of these companies to keep spending essentially made it possible for large chunks of the economy to move forward despite the pandemic.
Capital investment is critical because it enables the creation of high-productivity, well-paying jobs. According to our count, the top 10 companies in the Investment Heroes list collectively added 483,000 jobs globally in 2020. The industries represented by the top 10 Investment Heroes added 234,000 American jobs between the start of the pandemic in February 2020 and April 2021, while the rest of the private sector lost more than 6 million jobs.
The Investment Heroes report was first reported in Bloomberg Businessweek. Read the exclusive reporting here.
Read the full report here:
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.
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Media Contact: Aaron White – awhite@ppionline.org