Wells Fargo: Reduce income inequality by giving employees a wage increase

With the increasing focus on income inequality in the United States, Wells Fargo has an opportunity to be at the forefront of helping to reduce this disparity by setting a higher bar. I believe Wells Fargo could demonstrate to other large corporations that it is very possible to maintain a profitable company that not only looks out for its consumers and shareholders, but its employees as well.

This year, Wells Fargo in its second quarter alone had a net income of $5.7 billion, and total revenue of $21.1 billion. These are very impressive numbers and it’s obvious that Wells Fargo is one of the most profitable company in the nation right now. Last year, Wells Fargo’s CEO, John Stumpf, pulled in over $19 million, more than most of the employees will see in our lifetimes. Meanwhile, the vast majority of employees barely make enough to live comfortably on their own. So, why not take some of this and distribute it to the rest of the employees?

Sure, the company provides (while not great), some pretty good benefits, as well as discretionary profit sharing for those who partake in our 401k program. While the benefits are nice, the profit sharing through the 401k only goes to make the company itself and its shareholders more profitable rather than boost the income of the thousands of us here every day making this company the prestigious powerhouse that it is.

My estimate is that Wells Fargo has roughly around 300,000 employees. My proposal is take $3 billion dollars, just a small fraction of what Wells Fargo pulls in annually, and raise every employee’s annual salary by $10,000. This equates to an hourly raise of about $4.71 per hour. Think, as well, of the positive publicity in a time of extreme consumer skepticism towards banks. By doing this, Wells Fargo will not only help to make its people -- its family -- more happy, productive, and financially stable, it will also show the rest of the United States, if not the world that, that big corporations can have a heart other than philanthropic endeavors.

Each and every one of us plays an integral part in the success of this company. It is time that we ask to be rightfully compensated for the hard work that we accomplish, and for the great part we all have played in the success of this company. There are many of us out there who come to work every day and give it our all, yet, we struggle to make ends meet while our peers in upper management and company executives reap the majority of the rewards. One of our lowest scored TMCS questions is that our opinions matter. Well they do! While the voice of one person in a world as large as ours may seem only like a whisper, the combined voices of each and all of us can move mountains!

Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/people/andrewbain. The license to this image can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/