Bank of America will boost its minimum hourly wage to $23 next month, in its latest step toward paying its lowest-earning employees $25 per hour by 2025, the company announced Wednesday.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender has bumped up its minimum wage at fairly regular intervals since 2017, when it paid $15 per hour. The last increase, to $22 per hour, was announced in May 2022.
“Providing a competitive minimum rate of pay is foundational to being a great place to work,” Sheri Bronstein, the bank’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement. “By investing in a variety of benefits to attract and develop talented teammates, we are investing in the long-term success of our employees, customers and communities. Our commitment to $25 by 2025 is how we share success with you and lead the way for other companies.”
Indeed, other banks have, at times, announced wage increases shortly after Bank of America’s. In the weeks after the nation’s second-largest bank raised its wage floor last year, Truist, BMO and U.S. Bank followed suit.
The boost in minimum pay to $23 per hour would translate to a minimum annual salary of nearly $48,000 for full-time employees, Bank of America said. If the lender reaches its $25-per-hour target by 2025, it will have raised its minimum wage by 121% since 2010, it said.
Bank of America has made a habit, too, of offering restricted-stock awards to its rank-and-file. This year marked the sixth straight that the bank offered the perk, though employees making less than $100,000 per year have been included in only the last two.
Employees last year received bonuses ranging from 65 to 600 restricted stock units. The bank did not detail in the value of this year’s awards, but it did say 96% of Bank of America employees were eligible.
Bank of America also announced in 2021 that all its U.S. vendors need to pay their employees dedicated to the bank at least $15 an hour.
