Bank of America has pledged to pay its employees at least $25 per hour by the year 2025.
The country’s second-largest bank announced the move on Tuesday and also said that all its U.S. vendors are now required to pay their employees dedicated to the bank $15 per hour or more.
“A core tenet of responsible growth is our commitment to being a great place to work, which means investing in the people who serve our clients,” said Sheri Bronstein, chief human resources officer at Bank of America. “That includes providing strong pay and competitive benefits to help them and their families so that we continue to attract and retain the best talent.”
The $25 per hour vow comes just over a year after Bank of America increased its minimum wage to $20 per hour, meeting early a goal that it set in 2019 to raise wages to that level by 2021. The company had previously hiked its minimum hourly pay from $15 to $17 in May 2019.
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With the increase to $25 per hour, Bank of America said that its minimum wage will have increased by more than 121% since 2010, a hike of nearly $14 per hour in a little over a decade.
The bank’s minimum wage is far above the federal minimum wage, which hovers at $7.25 per hour and has been in place since 2009. Some Democrats are pushing to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
A $15 minimum wage was included in the House’s iteration of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 spending package, although it was later removed when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that it could not be included in the package because of the reconciliation rules that Democrats used to shove the legislation through without a single GOP vote.
The Biden administration has lobbied for a $15 minimum wage. Late last month, Biden signed an executive order increasing the minimum wage to $15 for all workers employed by federal contractors.
“A $15 minimum wage will enhance worker productivity and generate higher quality work by boosting workers’ health, morale, and effort,” an administration official said of the executive order.
Some states have higher minimum wages than the federal government. California’s minimum wage is the highest at $14, followed by Washington’s $13.69, and Massachusetts’s $13.50. Washington, D.C., has a minimum wage of $15 per hour.
Companies other than Bank of America have also made the leap to higher wages, with major corporations such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Facebook all paying their employees at least $15 per hour.
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Bank of America’s target of $25 per hour is higher than those of its competitors. JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by amount of assets, offers a $16.50 per hour wage, increasing to $18 in areas with higher costs of living. Wells Fargo announced a $15 minimum wage last year ($20 in some high-cost areas), and Fifth Third Bancorp boosted its lowest hourly pay to $18 back in 2019.
