by Volunteer State News
Amazon received $166 million in subsidies, tax breaks, and grants from Tennessee communities for 20 projects.
Advocacy group Good Jobs First, which opposes such subsidies, found Tennessee provided the eighth-highest amount of grants and breaks among U.S. states to the nearly $1-trillion company.
Tennessee is ranked behind Ohio (14 projects/$172 million) and ahead of Kentucky (21 projects/$112 million), Missouri (2 projects/$111 million), and Massachusetts (5 projects/$87 million).
The most expensive subsidy provided in Tennessee was by the Nashville government, which offered $87 million to Amazon in grants and tax credits.
The second largest subsidy was provided by the Memphis local government, worth $18 million of tax giveaways and grants through what’s known as the PILOT program, as well as $3 million for a FastTrack grant.
There were two developments which received undisclosed subsidy amounts.
Several Amazon projects were cancelled on put on hold in recent years. Construction of office spaces being built in Nashville were put on hold in 2021, as reported by WKRN, and have not yet resumed by January 2023.
A fulfillment center in Alcoa, which received $1.6 million in subsidies and promised over 800 jobs, was delayed in early 2022, according to WBIR. The completion date was pushed to mid-2023.
Plans to open a fulfillment center in Clarksville were also delayed by up to 10 months, with a currently unknown opening date, as reported by ClarksvilleNOW.
Tennessee has provided several major subsidies to car manufacturers, including nearly $900 for Ford Motors and more than $800 million for Volkswagen.
Tennessee does not collect income tax.
As of Nov. 17, 2022, Amazon had received 310 separate tax break deals from local and state governments across the U.S., totaling $5.14 billion. The state of Virginia was home to the largest portion of these taxpayer-subsidized Amazon projects.
| STATE | # PROJECTS | TOTAL SUBSIDY |
|---|---|---|
| Virginia | 20 | $824,291,799 |
| Illinois | 16 | $732,973,199 |
| New York | 22 | $671,446,986 |
| Washington | 10 | $608,644,670 |
| Oregon | 32 | $483,459,645 |
| Texas | 13 | $305,959,751 |
| Ohio | 14 | $172,418,555 |
| Tennessee | 20 | $166,030,438 |
| Kentucky | 21 | $111,789,976 |
| Missouri | 2 | $110,600,000 |
| Massachusetts | 5 | $86,979,275 |
| California | 12 | $84,541,000 |
| Michigan | 5 | $82,352,146 |
| Maryland | 3 | $68,425,000 |
| South Carolina | 5 | $64,297,962 |
| Indiana | 15 | $60,389,500 |
| Alabama | 2 | $56,500,000 |
| Wisconsin | 6 | $54,135,500 |
| Louisiana | 7 | $48,967,587 |
| New Jersey | 3 | $45,422,240 |
| Florida | 13 | $43,239,475 |
| Connecticut | 3 | $37,700,000 |
| North Carolina | 5 | $31,186,975 |
| Pennsylvania | 4 | $29,557,871 |
| Georgia | 5 | $27,115,929 |
| Mississippi | 3 | $23,925,795 |
| Iowa | 2 | $22,400,000 |
| Kansas | 2 | $21,802,522 |
| Colorado | 9 | $15,779,091 |
| Oklahoma | 5 | $11,207,651 |
| Utah | 3 | $9,780,226 |
| Delaware | 2 | $7,972,500 |
| Minnesota | 1 | $5,700,000 |
| New Mexico | 1 | $5,244,071 |
| Arizona | 2 | $5,139,671 |
| Nevada | 5 | $3,251,324 |
| Rhode Island | 1 | $2,700,000 |
| Maine | 11 | $578,828 |
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Photo “Amazon Fulfilment Center” by Lvi56. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Ah yes, ED. The one thing where in the end someone does not get what they expected. The measure of success of the financial input from government in this process is largely ignored if the individual project fails.