Recently, wage pressure has made headlines in cities all around the country. In this video clip from "Ask Us Anything" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on April 22, Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel explains how the wage issue is an underappreciated risk factor for many companies today.

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Matt Frankel: There's not that much historic precedent, at least in my lifetime, for workers having the upper hand as much as they do now like Jason just alluded to that. I will say that it is an underappreciated risk factor I think.

For example, wage pressure right now is literally the biggest reason that bank stocks haven't done better. Jamie Dimon said, "Yeah, we're going to make more money from interest rates going up and things like that with loans and things like that." But at the same time, we have to pay our workers more because we need to be staffed, we need to stay competitive. That's going to pretty much negate the fact that the effects of higher interest rates for now.

A lot of other banks are in the same situation. Banks have kind of been on the forefront of minimum wage hikes. I think Bank of America (BAC -0.26%) made there's $25 an hour already. But it is an underappreciated risk factor for a lot of these companies.

But on the other hand, the companies that are really seeing all this union pressure, things like that, are the companies that have generally historically taken care of their employees anyway. Think Starbucks (SBUX -0.21%). They've been a leader in employee benefits from the get-go. Every employee gets stock options, even part-timers, education benefits, things like that.

I don't see it as being a big risk factor for the companies that you see in the headlines. But for companies in general, I see wage pressure as being an underappreciated risk factor.