Late next year, Bank of America is increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour in a step that raises wages for hundreds of thousands of workers and illustrates both its profitable business and the competitive US labor market.
BofA, the nation's second-biggest bank in terms of capital, has expected to raise the U.S. base hourly rate from $17 to $20 per hour by 2021 for 22,000 employees.
But the company said it decided to raise its baseline pay approximately a year earlier this week.
"We say thank you and celebrate our progress with our colleagues who represent our customers and neighborhoods every day," said in a press release by Sheri Bronstein, Chief Human Resources Officer of BofA.
According to the bank that employed nearly 170,000 people in the U.S. last year, the board has decided to increase its minimum wage by more than $8 an hour since 2010.
The firm said last week that after tallying high profits for four of the last five years, it would pay special incentives to staff for a third consecutive year.
BofA posted $7.5 billion in revenue in the third quarter in October, receiving a cumulative $28.1 billion in revenue of $91.2 billion in 2018.
The promise of more pay comes as banks jockey in the midst of an increasingly competitive labor market to fill teller and other positions in their branches. The U.S. unemployment rate remained similar to a 50-year high of 3.6 million in October.
Other major street banks also raised pay for rank-and-file workers, but none other than BofA in the top tier committed at least $20 an hour.
Citigroup lifted the minimum wage in June after the U.S. to $15 an hour. California's Representative Maxine Waters, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, called on the nation's third largest lender to agree and increase the minimum pay to $20 an hour.
The country's largest lender, JPMorgan Chase, increased the minimum wage to 18,000 workers to a total from $16.50 to $18 an hour, depending on local living costs, and Wells Fargo boosted the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
In a bid to attract and retain qualified workers, retail and fast-food giants including Amazon, Walmart and McDonald's also hiked hourly pay.
In recent months, low-paid bank workers' wages had JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on the defensive, with the executive grilled at a congressional hearing about how basic expenses could be covered by a minimum wage employee at JPMorgan in California.
