The ever-tightening labor market keeps seeing private employers boost wages in order to stay competitive for the best workers of what T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert acknowledges as a “job seekers’ market.” T-Mobile is one of many employers, including Costco, Hobby Lobby, and Bank of America, which all pledged $18 and above per hour in 2022 and beyond. This isn’t a short-lived trend, either, given that Amazon’s been paying $15+ per hour for years; and in 2021, private employers boosted restaurant and grocery store workers to average wages of over $15 per hour for the first time.
Notably, this change surpasses the over 50% of states raising minimum wage this year, and in fact, private employers chose to outpace the Fight-For-15 laws, which were funded by unions.
