Bank of America Inches Closer to Its $25-an-Hour Goal

Bank of America has pledged it would raise its minimum wage to $25 by 2025, and it just got one step closer to reaching that goal. On Tuesday, the finance giant announced it would up its lowest pay rung to $24 an hour, starting in October, for both full-time and part-time hourly workers, per a release. That increase would mean a minimum annual salary of nearly $50,000 for a full-timer, with "thousands" to benefit from the pay raise, per CBS News. That outlet notes the average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2023 was $30,900, according to the latest Census Bureau data.

For context, BofA's minimum wage stood at $11.30 an hour in 2010. The US' second-biggest bank began its push to raise its minimum wage in 2017, when it brought that pay to $15 an hour. In contrast, the federal minimum wage has remained stuck at $7.25 since 2009. NPR notes that the pay increase will particularly affect call-center workers and bank tellers. Teller jobs especially have been difficult for banks to fill, as they're "relatively unglamorous and non-remote-friendly." The median pay for tellers in 2023 was $18.10 an hour, or almost $38,000 annually, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (More Bank of America stories.)