Nearly a third of the Nationwide Children's Hospital staff will get a raise as the hospital increases its minimum wage from $10 to $15 per hour.

The health system announced on Wednesday that about 1,800 employees will be brought to the $15-per-hour level. Another 2,000 who currently earn the $15 rate also will receive increases.

The increases will begin in July and be fully implemented by the end of next year.

Dr. Steve Allen, CEO of Nationwide Children's, said the decision marks a commitment to the well-being of employees, will help attract the best people to entry-level positions and support staff in delivering quality patient care.

“We have engaged in a number of initiatives that go beyond elite medical centers in addressing issues outside traditional medicine,” he said. “One of them is to assure that people who work for us have a wage that is sufficient in order for them to provide for their families.”

The increases are also the right thing to do for employees, Allen said, and a way to show them that their work is valued.

The new rate will apply to entry-level positions, such as patient care assistants who take vital signs and perform other duties, housekeepers, nutrition services employees and unit coordinators who often complete clerical and other tasks.

Under the hospital’s new minimum wage, a person working a 40-hour work week will net $600 per week or $31,200 per year before taxes and any other withholdings. That’s $10,400 more than a 40-hour-per week worker would be paid under the current minimum wage.

The new rate is $6.45 per hour higher than the state-mandated minimum hourly wage of $8.55 for non-tip-earning employees at companies with annual receipts of $314,000 or more. Companies with receipts below that threshold must adhere to the federal minimum wage, which currently is $7.25 per hour.

Nationwide Children’s, which employs more than 12,000 people, follows in the footsteps of a number of companies that have increased wages beyond those requirements.

For example, Amazon increased its minimum hourly wage to $15 in November. Nationwide Insurance raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2015, the same year Aetna’s minimum wage increased to $16 per hour.

And some retailers, such as Costco and Walmart, pay hourly minimum wages that are over $10.

Ohio's median wage was $17.79 per hour in 2017, 49 cents less than the U.S. median wage of $18.28, according to a report by the left-leaning nonprofit Policy Matters Ohio.

The $15-per-hour minimum wage has been discussed widely in recent years, with many worker advocates calling for such an increase.

A measure before the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2024. In Ohio, House Democrats announced an agenda last month seeking to phase in such an increase over four years.

Advocates also have criticized the gap between the compensation given to executives and the amount paid to workers. Federal law that went into effect last year requires publicly held companies to compare CEO compensations to that of typical workers in reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Policy Matters Ohio analysis reviewed the 2017 filings of 44 of Ohio’s 100 largest employers and found that, in 28 cases, the CEOs made more than 200 times the amount paid to workers earning a median wage. The highest-paid CEO on the list was AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, whose compensation totaled about $28.7 million.

As a nonprofit organization, Nationwide Children’s, the 30th-largest employer in the state, does not have to report the comparison. Separate filings with the Internal Revenue Service show that CEO Allen was paid about $1.8 million in salary and bonuses in 2017, with about $361,000 additional compensation in retirement and other benefits.

Allen said managers had recommended the increase to the Nationwide Children’s board, which unanimously supported the financial commitment.

While Allen called the commitment being made “significant,” a hospital representative would not publicly disclose the amount of the investment.

Nationwide Children’s consistently has a high number of job openings.

It posted 831 online job listings in the month ending Feb. 13, the fourth highest among businesses in central Ohio, according to the most recent report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. That compares with 1,028 postings by Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center, which topped the list.

jviviano@dispatch.com

@JoAnneViviano