"It costs us a few hundred million dollars a year ... but it's an investment," the bank's CEO Brian Moynihan told CNN's Poppy Harlow on Tuesday, adding that It's about maintaining a "great standard of living for our teammates." Paying more also helps give employees a "career mindset" and ultimately breeds loyalty, he added. And that, in turn, is the way shareholders get paid back in this initiative. "The key is for big companies like ours to set a standard," Moynihan said. "We think it's part of sharing our success with our communities." It's not the first time Bank of America has raised the minimum wage for its employees. In 2017 the bank raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour. Two years later the company announced it would lift that level to $20 over the coming two years — and did so ahead of schedule, with an increase that impacted more than 200,000 workers. It's another move in the nationwide debate around minimum wage, which picked up again during the pandemic and following the inauguration of President Joe Biden, who supports lifting the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The president endorsed this again recently in his address to the joint session of Congress on April 28.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/economy/bank-of-america-minimum-wage/index.html