JPMorgan Chase’s CEO pledges to raise wages
The CEO of the nation’s largest bank said Tuesday he’ll raise the company’s minimum pay for thousands of employees by at least 18%, including bank tellers and customer service representatives, in a vow to address growing concerns about income inequality.
“A pay increase is the right thing to do,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in an op-ed that appeared in Tuesday’s New York Times. “Wages for many Americans have gone nowhere for too long.”
Dimon added that the banking giant will also step up inhouse training and funding of national programs to bolster career-oriented education.
The base pay for 18,000 employees, now $10.15 an hour, will rise to $12 to $16.50 an hour over the next three years, depending on geographic and market factors, Dimon wrote.
He acknowledged the move will help the company “attract and retain talented people in a competitive environment.”
With the nation’s jobless rate at 4.9%, companies increasingly are being forced to raise wages to lure fewer available workers and prevent employees from leaving.
Dimon is the latest CEO to respond to a growing national movement to address wage stagnation and the wealth gap.
The past couple of years, companies including Walmart, McDonald’s, IKEA, Nationwide Insurance and Facebook have announced minimum pay increases, and about half the states have boosted their minimum wages.
New York, California and several cities have agreed to lift their pay floors to $15 an hour over the next five years or so. Monday, Starbucks announced that all of its employees would get at least a 5% raise.
Average annual earnings across the country have risen a tepid 2% for several years, according to the Labor Department, barely keeping pace with inflation, though other measures have shown faster increases.
Dimon also said the company will spend more than $200 million this year to train thousands of entry-level employees in consumer banking, enough to train 30% more workers than it did last year.