JPMorgan Chase CEO says bank will raise minimum pay

“Wages for many Americans have gone nowhere for too long”, he wrote.

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 tackle growing concerns about income inequality.

“Above all, it enables more people to begin to share in the rewards of economic growth”. Top corporate executives are making louder and louder noise about a lack of investment across the U.S. economy, be it a dearth of decent-paying jobs or a shortfall in needed infrastructure investment. President Barack Obama raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour in 2015, and earlier this year, California and NY moved to raise their statewide minimum wages to $15 an hour.

Dimon has often argued that improving the country’s education system is key to helping people gain the skills that allow them to join the middle class. It will apply to about 10 percent of its US workforce.

“If there is one industry that can afford to give its workers an honest living wage, it’s the banking industry”, said Keith Mestrich, President and CEO of Amalgamated Bank in a statement.

The move follows United States salary increases announced over the a year ago and a half by several large companies, including Wal-Mart Stores, McDonald’s and, just Monday, Starbucks. Walmart and Target have announced similar plans.

The move puts Dimon and J.P. Morgan Chase in basic agreement with the “Fight For $15” movement, which has advocated for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

But raising the minimum wage has also become a key issue during the 2016 presidential election.

Wall Street is expecting the New York-based bank to report earnings of $1.43 per share on revenue of $24.2 billion.

According to a National Employment Law Project report released previous year, the retail banking industry is a “major contributor to the low-wage economy”. Dimon’s compensation past year came to $27 million, up 35% from 2014. A third of the 1.7 million workers in retail banking make less than $15 an hour, according to a 2015 study flagged in the Financial Times.

That has fed into populist anger aimed at Wall Street.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. opened for trading at $62.42 and hit $62.95 on the upside on Monday, eventually ending the session at $62.27, with a gain of 0.71% or 0.44 points.

The gap between the highest earners and lowest earners has also been a central theme in the U.S. election.