During a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Katie Porter used the financial struggles of one of her constituents to grill JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon over the vast worker-executive pay gap and low wages at his bank.
"What I'd like you to do is provide a way for families to make ends meet, so that little kids who are six years old living in a one-bedroom apartment with their mother aren't going hungry at night because they're $567 short."
--Rep. Katie Porter
Porter, a Democrat from California, outlined the monthly expenses of her constituent, a single-mother working full-time as a JPMorgan Chase teller for $16.50 an hour.
After paying for rent on her one-bedroom apartment, food, utilities, child care for her daughter, and other basic needs, Porter estimated that her constituent has a $567 budget shortfall each month.
When Porter asked Dimon--who earns $31 million a year--how his employee should manage this shortfall while working 40 hours a week at his bank, the Wall Street CEO had no answer.
"I don't know, I'd have to think about that," Dimon said three times after Porter asked whether her constituent should take out a JPMorgan Case credit card and run a deficit or overdraft at the bank.
After Dimon said he would like to be "helpful," Porter responded, "What I'd like you to do is provide a way for families to make ends meet, so that little kids who are six years old living in a one-bedroom apartment with their mother aren't going hungry at night because they're $567 short."
"Mr. Dimon, you know how to spend $31 million a year in salary, and you can't figure out how to make up a $567 a month shortfall," Porter said. "This is is a budget problem you cannot solve."
In response to Dimon's suggestion that her math may not be correct, Porter hit back on Twitter.
"Jamie Dimon said he didn't know if all my numbers were accurate," the California Democrat wrote. "Here's the math so he can check."
