Evercore Co-CEO Says $15 Wage Hike Is Needed, Despite Pushback

(Bloomberg) -- Evercore Inc.’s Ralph Schlosstein said leaders in the U.S. should adopt a $15 minimum wage -- a move that’s being contested by one of the nation’s largest employers.

“The $15 minimum wage is a bit of a blunt instrument, but I do think we need a blunt instrument to at least start to swing that balance back in the direction of people who work,” the Evercore co-chief executive officer and co-chairman said Wednesday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “A $15 minimum wage basically gets you to the poverty line for a family of four. Anybody who works 40 hours a week, hard at a job, they ought to be able to at least be at the poverty line or above.”

Schlosstein parts with Doug McMillon, the chair of the Business Roundtable and CEO of Walmart Inc., who said this week that wages should be higher, but that he doesn’t support President Joe Biden’s plan to double the existing minimum, which has been $7.25 since 2009. The retailer is the world’s largest, and employs 1.5 million in the U.S. alone. It has increased its own wages in recent years -- but falls short of the $15 threshold.

McMillon proposed wage increases that take into account regional standards of living.

“One size fits all isn’t perfect, in the sense that obviously $15 an hour in Boston is a little bit different in terms of standard of living in Bentonville, Arkansas,” Schlosstein said. “Having said that, I do think over the last 20, 30 years there has been a pretty profound shift in the returns that are available to capital, and the returns that are available to labor, and particularly less-skilled labor.”

Evercore’s co-CEO said ideally the wages would be linked to inflation to protect the purchasing power of lower-income workers. The debate comes as Biden starts his tenure as president, and will have to negotiate the wage increases with Congress.