Bank of America to institute a $20 minimum wage

Bank of America (BoA) no longer dominates downtown Wilmington, since it moved out of the Bracebridge buildings. But it still has a presence in the state, with five financial centers, three Merrill Lynch offices and one U.S. Trust office — most located in the suburbs.

Last year, according to Delaware Public Media, BoA employed approximately 1,200 people in Wilmington and 6,700 in the state of Delaware. And although those numbers are lower than they’ve been before, BoA is still hiring people in Delaware, with 108 Delaware job openings currently on its website — everything from programmers to customer service reps to machine operators.

Now, it’s reported that by 2121, the lowest-paid BoA employees will earn $20 an hour, with a new minimum of $17 going into effect on May 1.

The news comes just before the CEOs for the nation’s biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of New YorkMellon, Goldman Sachs Group and BoA — will be called as witnesses in a Congressional hearing called “Holding Megabanks Accountable: A Review of Global Systemically Important Banks 10 Years After the Financial Crisis.”

BREAKING: The day before @BankofAmerica CEO Brian Moynihan and six other CEOs get grilled by Congress for income inequality & other hot-button issues, the bank says it's boosting minimum wage to $20 an hour. 👏https://t.co/kddoP5ptno

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— Hugh Son (@Hugh_Son) April 9, 2019

In 2018, JPMorgan Chase, which has a growing presence in Delaware, raised its minimum wage to $18 an hour, and this February, Christiana Care, the state’s largest employer, raised its own to $15.

Delaware’s minimum wage is currently $8.75, with an increase to $9.25 going into effect this October.