[disclosure - I work at Amazon, but have no internal information whatsoever.]

This is over 10 years, so ~$5k/job/yr. For reference, economic development incentives for corporate relocations are commonly $20k-75k per job, and often for jobs paying much less than Amazon is expected to pay HQ2.5 employees. Also, I believe that Amazon will receive tax rebates based on the number of jobs created over time, which is better than many packages that don't have any accountability, limits, or clawbacks.

I don't think economic development incentives are a wise use of funds, but this one is notably only for the scale and publicity. People are so mad because this the first time most people have heard of the practice.

For more information (and many much worse examples), see the book "The Great American Jobs Scam" - https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Jobs-Scam-Corporate/dp...

Most of these incentives cost more than the jobs they provide, they do not encourage businesses to make decisions they wouldn't already have made, and any promises in exchange for tax benefits are rarely even followed up on.

Read http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-American-Jobs-Scam/dp/157675... if you want to boil your blood about this topic.