New York (CNN Business) Bank of America (BAC) said Tuesday that it will raise the hourly minimum wage of its US employees to $25 by 2025.
"It costs us a few hundred million dollars a year ... but it's an investment," the bank's CEO Brian Moynihan told CNN's Poppy Harlow on Tuesday, adding that It's about maintaining a "great standard of living for our teammates."
Paying more also helps give employees a "career mindset" and ultimately breeds loyalty, he added. And that, in turn, is the way shareholders get paid back in this initiative.
"The key is for big companies like ours to set a standard," Moynihan said. "We think it's part of sharing our success with our communities."
It's not the first time Bank of America has raised the minimum wage for its employees. In 2017 the bank raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Two years later the company announced it would lift that level to $20 over the coming two years — and did so ahead of schedule , with an increase that impacted more than 200,000 workers.
WishIWasFlaccid on May 18th, 2021 at 17:22 UTC »
The negativity bias is strong in this post. Assuming this impacts the same number of employees as past increases, this benefits over 200,000 employees. They are also requiring all vendors and suppliers to pay employees $15/hr, impacting an additional 43,000 people.
BOA is already leading the industry with a $20 minimum wage today. Chase only pays $18/hr impacting 22,000 employees and Citigroup only pays $15. Chase and Citigroup are the ones we should be shitting on. Far less employees and still don't pay the same as BOA.
I'm sure I'll be down voted for being optimistic, but damn I'm happy for those 250,000 people benefitting from this news.
mideon2000 on May 18th, 2021 at 16:42 UTC »
2025 comes they might have 1 teller running around like a headless chicken, a loan officer and manager per branch.
Edit: yeah, banks are already doing this, just not the pay part. Atms are a lot easier and quicker. Just the way of the future. As long as they got more than 2 atms per location because from what i see it is a madhouse on fridays
Kahzgul on May 18th, 2021 at 16:24 UTC »
In old news, Bank of America (BofA) has been completely eliminating tellers from some locations for quite a while.
https://thefinancialbrand.com/64900/bank-of-america-automated-branches/
edit: lots of people asking questions about why I bring this up. Paying employees more is a very good thing that I support. That said, I feel like BofA's virtue signalling that they're paying more is hollow because they're also downsizing while shifting these better paying jobs into automation and outsourced tele-tellers. Note that while BofA says they'll pay $25 per hour, their contractors are only required to pay $15 per hour.
I'm sure that the employees who still work for BofA proper will benefit nicely from this raise, but I'm equally sure that BofA is using this move to improve their self image while conveniently ignoring their business practices which hurt their employees and the overall quality of their customer service.
edit 2: Some folks are still not understanding what I'm saying. Automation is a good thing, I agree. But telling the world you're going to pay your employees more as you replace your employees with robots is virtue signaling. It's basically a lie. BofA is not going out of their way to treat their employees well. They're downsizing. And not just tellers:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bank-of-america-layoffs/bank-of-america-reduces-staff-in-investment-banking-and-trading-bloomberg-news-idUSKBN2AP2JR
So hey, yeah, it's great that the floor pay is $25/hour. But firing 3 people to pay 1 a living wage doesn't make your company a good company.