Bank of America to raise minimum wage to $20 in the next two years

Bank of America will raise the minimum wage for its employees to $20 an hour in the next two years, beginning with a pay hike next month.

“If you get a job at Bank of America, you’ll make $41,000” annually, Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan told MSNBC Tuesday. “With the success our company has … we have to share that success with our teammates.”

Moynihan told the network that the pay raise will be rolled out incrementally over the next two years, starting with raising the hourly minimum wage to $17 on May 1. The company’s minimum wage rose to $15 an hour in 2017, up from $13.50 an hour.{mosads}

Moynihan said the Charlotte, N.C.-based company has also frozen health care cost increases for lower-paid employees. Bank of America employs 205,000 people and is the second biggest U.S. lender by assets, according to CNBC. 

Moynihan’s announcement comes a day before a group of bank CEOs are scheduled to testify before the Democrat-controlled House Financial Services Committee in Washington.

The wage increases come as a number of companies and states have moved to raise minimum wages. Target and Amazon, as well as states including New Jersey and Illinois, have taken concrete steps toward a $15 minimum wage.

The federal minimum, meanwhile, has remained at $7.25 an hour for a decade. 

Congressional Democrats introduced a plan in January that aims to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024.