Bank of America raises minimum wage to $24, even as workforce shrinks

Bank of America has raised its national minimum wage to $24 an hour, bringing the minimum annualized salary to $50,000, according to a statement released today. That’s $20,000 more than employees earned on average when the salary tracking program started in 2017, according to the company.

But the latest increase in wages comes on the heels of Bank of America decreasing its overall headcount. In 2018, the year after the bank announced the wage increase program, it employed 204,000 people, according to company filings. By 2022, that number peaked at 217,000 employees before falling last year to 213,000 employees.

As Fortune reported last week, there are 33,000 fewer banking jobs available today than there were last year, and 16,500 jobs fewer than two years ago. The series of pay raises comes at a time when banks are facing increasing pressure to pay their lowest earners more money.

The national average wage for all jobs in the U.S. is $64,000, according to the Social Security Administration. According to jobs site Glassdoor, bankers in New York make on average between $86,000 and $160,000, including at executive positions.

Bank of America's latest pay raise is its eighth in the last eight years. The bank’s goal is to reach a minimum wage of $25 an hour by 2025. For some context, the national minimum wage is only $7.25, but in states that have a higher minimum wage, employers must honor the higher amount. No states have a higher minimum wage than what Bank of America is now paying.

In December, BNY raised its minimum wage to $22.50, adding mental health benefits, and earlier this year employee compensation firm Just Capital reported that JPMorgan’s minimum wage was $20, higher than the national living wage estimate for a single working adult of $17.46 an hour.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com