Being a parent is hard. But being a single parent is even harder—especially when it comes to finances. That’s why Democrat representative Katie Porter broached the subject on Wednesday when she directly questioned JP Morgan Chase CEO Jaime Dimon about how a single parent could make a living on Chase’s low wages.
Porter started by describing a hypothetical scenario based on a real job listing posted for a bank teller position at Chase Bank. She broke down exactly what the single parent employee would spend her $2,425 a month on if she lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Irvine, Calif.
According to Porter’s math, the parent (in this case, a mom) would be left with a $567 deficit per month. She asked Dimon, “How should she manage this budget shortfall while she’s working full-time at your bank?”
The CEO first questioned Porter’s numbers before saying he was “wholly sympathetic.” But Porter wasn’t finished.
Comparing the single mom’s salary to Dimon’s staggering $31 million, she asked Dimon, “She’s short $567, what would you suggest she do?”
“I don’t know I’d have to think about it,” Dimon responded during the House Financial Services Committee hearing. He then added that he’d “love to call up and have a conversation about her financial affairs and see if we could be helpful.”
Porter fired back, “Well, I appreciate your desire to be helpful, but what I’d like you to do is provide a way for families to make ends meet.”
To further prove her point, she tweeted a photo of her budget calculations for the single parent, which resulted in a monthly deficit. It’s something that Porter says, unfortunately, is a common reality for many Americans.
“Patricia is a representative of a number of constituents that we’d heard from. So there is no Patricia out there,” she told CNN. “But in the other way, there are thousands and thousands, and tens of thousands of Patricias out there.”
.@RepKatiePorter outlined the budget of a single mother who works as a Chase bank teller, and asked JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon for solutions for the mother's over-$500 shortfall.
Dimon did not have a response pic.twitter.com/pYp6VfuZ3l
— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) April 10, 2019
During my questioning, @jpmorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said he didn’t know if all my numbers were accurate. Here’s the math so he can check. pic.twitter.com/OIDkrWfASC
— Rep. Katie Porter (@RepKatiePorter) April 10, 2019
