Small businesses had a brutal pandemic. Amazon's earnings more than tripled.

The pandemic hit the bodies, hearts, and pocketbooks of most Americans hard. But Amazon did just fine.

Amazon released its earnings report on Thursday for the first quarter of 2021. It gives us a clear picture of how Amazon fared during the pandemic.

So how are Amazon's coffers looking? They are, frankly, overflowing. In January through March in 2021, it reported net income of $8.1 billion. That brings its total pandemic earnings to $26.9 billion. As MarketWatch points out, that's three times as much money as Amazon made in the previous three years combined.

It also tripled its earnings from the first quarter of 2020, when it reported net income of $2.5 billion Read more...