August 14, 2015
By Steve Wishnia and Neal Tepel
The nation’s 470,000 bank tellers make so little that they could be nicknamed “the fast-food workers of Wall Street.” According to a survey by the National Employment Law Project released this month, almost three-quarters of them make less than $15 an hour, with a median wage of $12.44 nationally and $13.30 in New York State. Many frontline bank employees “report working unpaid overtime hours in order to meet additional demands,” the survey added.
“The public may associate banking with high-paying white-collar jobs,” says NELP senior policy researcher Irene Tung, but in many jobs, bosses “don’t pay people enough to meet their basic needs…. In an industry where many executives are receiving multimillion-dollar compensation packages, it is deplorable that the majority of bank tellers make less than a living wage.” More than 80% of American bank tellers are women. Read more
