Seven American businesses announced on Wednesday that they would both be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their employees because of the Republican tax reform bill that the Senate passed on Tuesday night.
AT&T announced that once President Donald Trump signed the bill into law they would “invest an additional $1 billion in the United States in 2018 and pay a special $1,000 bonus to more than 200,000 AT&T U.S. employees.” AT&T further noted that if Trump signed the bill before Christmas that the company will receive the bonus over the holidays.
“Congress, working closely with the President, took a monumental step to bring taxes paid by U.S. businesses in line with the rest of the industrialized world,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO, said in a statement. “This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs. In fact, we will increase our U.S. investment and pay a special bonus to our U.S. employees.”
Boeing announced an “immediate commitment” to investing an additional $300 million in three areas that will directly benefit their employees:
- $100 million for corporate giving, with funds used to support demand for employee gift-match programs and for investments in Boeing’s focus areas for charitable giving: in education, in our communities, and for veterans and military personnel.
- $100 million for workforce development in the form of training, education, and other capabilities development to meet the scale needed for rapidly evolving technologies and expanding markets.
- $100 million for “workplace of the future” facilities and infrastructure enhancements for Boeing employees.
Dennis Muilenburg, President, and CEO of Boeing praised the new tax reform bill, saying that it is critical for Boeing’s sustained long-term growth.
“For Boeing, the reforms enable us to better compete on the world stage and give us a stronger foundation for the investment in innovation, facilities and skills that will support our long-term growth,” Muilenburg said. “Each of these investments benefits Boeing’s most important strength – our employees – and reflects the real-time impact and economic benefit of the reforms.”
Fifth Third Bancorp, a bank headquartered in Ohio, announced that they would raise the minimum hourly wage for all employees to $15 following the tax reform bill and would give a one-time bonus of $1,000 to more than 13,500 of its employees.
Wells Fargo announced that they will increase their minimum hourly pay rate to $15, and will “aim for $400M in philanthropic donations next year due to the newly-passed GOP tax bill.”
Comcast announced that they will give $1,000 bonuses to over 100,000 “eligible frontline and non-executive employees” & invest $50 billion over the next five years in infrastructure “based on the passage of tax reform.”
FedEx announced that the company will ramp up hiring in response to the tax bill, The Washington Post reports:
Executives at the package delivery company say the passage of the bill, which promises massive cuts to the corporate tax rate, would prompt the company to increase spending on hiring, as well as new equipment and technology. The company also projects the changes to amount to a $1.3 billion increase in annual profits, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
“We’re encouraged by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act legislation advancing in Congress at this very moment,” Frederick Smith, the chairman of FedEx, said according to the Post. “This legislation offers pro-growth, pro-business tax reform solutions that will power the economy.”
CVS Health announced in October that if the corporate tax rate went down,it would create 3,000 permanent new jobs.
“To the degree that we have [tax] relief, there’s a lot of investments that we think we can make within our business model that can more rapidly expand our business model across the country and deliver better care and higher quality and lower cost,” CFO David Denton said. “So we would look to take the benefit of that and invest it clearly.”