While workers in the fast food industry are trying to push the minimum wage into the double digits, one company has gone further.
Dan Price, founder of Gravity Payments, recently surprised his staff of 120 by announcing that over the next three years he plans to raise the salary of even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative and salesman to a minimum of $70,000.
He told The New York Times he came up with the idea after reading an article on happiness that said for people who earn less than about $70,000, extra money can have a huge impact on their lives.
“Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Price asked his staff. “I’m kind of freaking out.”
Gravity, a Seattle-based credit card payment processing firm, is just over 10 years old. Price started it when he was just 19 in his college dorm room at Seattle Pacific University. Last year, the company processed $6.5 billion in transactions for more than 12,000 businesses.
According to Price, he would pay for the wage increases by slashing his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000 and using 75 to 80 percent of the company’s projected $2.2 million in profit this year.
Currently the average salary at the firm is $48,000 annually.
Price is going against the corporate trend of CEOs raking in millions. “The United States has one of the world’s largest pay gaps, with chief executives earning nearly 300 times what the average worker makes, according to some economists’ estimates,” reports the Times.
If you were the boss, is this a move you would make?
