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Amazon Spends $1 Billion to Increase Pay and Lower Health Care Costs for US Workers

William Attardi on September 19, 2025

Amazon has a global workforce of 1.5 million workers. The Seattle-based company said the average pay is increasing to more than $23 per hour. Amazon also said it will lower the cost of its entry health care plan to $5 per week and $5 for co-pays, starting next year. In January 2024, Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said that average wages for hourly workers would exceed $18, up from $17.50.  At Minneapolis-based Target, the starting hourly wage ranges from $15 to $24 for workers employed at stores and distribution centers. Amazon spends $1 billion to increase pay and lower health care costs for US workers | AP News

These AI-Skilled 20-Somethings Are Making Hundreds of Thousands a Year

William Attardi on August 28, 2025

It’s a tough time to be a young person looking for a job—unless you’re in artificial intelligence. While AI is part of the reason for the doldrums, there is a bright spot when it comes to workers with actual experience in machine learning. They’re in their early 20s, they have AI know-how, and a bunch of them are making $1 million a year.  Base salaries for nonmanagerial workers in AI with zero to three years experience grew by around 12% from 2024 to 2025, the largest gain of any experience group, according to a new report by the AI staffing firm Burtch Works, which analyzed the compensation of thousands of AI and data-science candidates. The report also found that people with AI experience are being promoted to management roles roughly twice as fast as their counterparts in other technology fields. They’re jumping the ladder as a result of their skills and impact instead of their years on the job. These AI-Skilled 20-Somethings Are Making Hundreds of Thousands a Year – WSJ

The Statue of Liberty was made with copper but due to oxidation, it turned green.

When the “Lady in the Harbor” first arrived in New York in 1886, she didn’t look like the mint-green icon we know today. In fact, for the first twenty years of her life, she stood as a towering, metallic beacon of reddish-gold. Designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and engineered by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the statue was a gift from France to America. To build her, Bartholdi chose copper for three practical reasons:

  • Malleability:It could be hammered into elaborate, thin sheets.
  • Weight:Copper is lighter than stone or bronze, making it easier to ship 350 individual pieces across the Atlantic.
  • Durability:It was strong enough to survive a 27-day ocean voyage and the harsh winds of the harbor.

When she was unveiled on October 28, 1886, her skin—made of 300 copper sheets roughly the thickness of two pennies—shone with a bright, metallic brown luster. The transformation from “penny-colored” to “patina-green” wasn’t planned. Bartholdi actually expected the statue to age into a deeper, darker red. However, the unique environment of New York Harbor—a mix of salt air, moisture, and industrial pollution—triggered a process called oxidation.

The Timeline of Change:

  1. 1886–1900:The bright copper dulled into a dark, muddy brown.
  2. 1903:The first hints of a light green crust, or “patina,” began to appear.
  3. 1906:The color change was so controversial that Congress nearly stepped in. They appropriated $62,000 to paint the statue back to its original color, but the public protested, calling the idea “sacrilege.”
  4. 1910–1920:The statue was a patchy mix of brown and green until 1920, when the oxidation was complete, leaving her entirely teal.

While we now view the green color as iconic, it actually serves a vital structural purpose. The layer of verdigris (the green patina) acts as a protective shield. It seals the copper underneath, preventing the metal from further corrosion and weathering.  By the time the color fully changed, a new generation of immigrants had arrived in America seeing a green statue.