Meet the CEO Who Took a Pay Cut to Set His Employees' Minimum Wage at $70,000 a Year
Dan Price is the founder of Gravity Payments and he has decided to pay all his employees at least $70,000. The New York Timesreports that Price made the move after reading an article on happiness. "The market rate for me as a C.E.O. compared to a regular person is ridiculous, it’s absurd," Price told the paper.
Price is affording the wage increase by cutting his own salary from a million dollars a year to $70,000 and using 75-80% of the company's expected annual profit. Price started the Seattle-based processing company in 2004, when he was just 19. Since then, Gravity Payments has grown to a staff of 120 people, where the average salary is about $48,000 a year. 70 employees will now make more money, with 30 of them doubling their salaries.
The story quotes Gravity Payments employee Hayley Vogt, who makes $45,000 a year and was becoming increasingly worried about rent increases. "I’m completely blown away right now," she said, "Everyone is talking about this $15 minimum wage in Seattle and it’s nice to work someplace where someone is actually doing something about it and not just talking about it.”
In the United States, the average CEO earns more than 350 times what the average worker does.
