Bank of America pushes minimum wage to $25 an hour

Bank of America pays its workers a lot more than America does.

At least in its minimum wage. 

The Charlotte-based national bank giant, with $3.44 trillion in assets through June 30, made some news last week in announcing it’s raising its minimum wage to $25 an hour. The raise, which goes into effect in early October, the bank says, will push the minimum annualized salary for full-time employees to more than $50,000. The hourly salary is also 244% more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and nearly 80% more than Florida’s minimum wage of $14 an hour. The bank has now increased its minimum hourly pay by nearly 67% since 2018, according to Reuters.

The BofA raise covers all full-time and part-time employees, the bank says. A spokesperson, in an email to the Business Observer, adds the raise will impact some 850 employees in markets in Charlotte, Lee, Collier and Sarasota-Manatee.

The raise mirrors what some other large banks have done in recent years. U.S. Bancorp increased its minimum wage twice in 2022, from $15 to $18 to $20 an hour. JP Morgan Chase raised its minimum wage the same year to a range of $20 to $25 an hour, depending on location. That was up from $16.50 an hour in 2019 and $10.15 an hour in 2016. Truist moved up its minimum wage to $22 an hour in 2022. Some of the move to raise salaries has come from outside pressure, from groups representing employees to federal lawmakers who have criticized big banks for paying employees too low.

“Our strong and rising minimum starting salary provides opportunities for our teammates to build a long-term career at Bank of America,” Bank of America Chief People Officer Sheri Bronstein says in a statement. “Competitive compensation is one of the many ways we are helping to drive American economic growth and opportunity.”

The BofA raise, according to the Reuters report, isn’t only an academic exercise. The bank, on a national scale, plans to hire 10,000 more individuals with military backgrounds and another 8,000 from community colleges over the next five years. It also plans to add 700 financial center roles in emerging U.S. markets.