Amazon’s triumphant pay raise is also a political play
After months of mounting political pressure, Amazon announced on Tuesday that it would be nearly doubling its minimum wage to $15 per hour. It was an unexpected move from a company that has traditionally been more concerned with cutting costs. In a statement, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos described it as a moral choice. “We listened to our critics,” Bezos said, “thought hard about what we wanted to do, and decided we want to lead.”
But Bezos’ moral awakening is also a canny political move. The wage increase comes amid unprecedented political scrutiny of tech giants — scrutiny that, so far, has focused on Facebook, Google, and Twitter rather than Amazon. At the same time, former…
