Posted on 09/22/2021 5:54:00 AM PDT by napscoordinator
Six years ago, Dan Price, the founder and CEO of credit-card processing company Gravity Payments. made waves when he announced that he was raising the firm's minimum salary to $70,000 for his 120 employees.
To accommodate the change, Price slashed his own $1 million salary.
In the following years, revenue soared, and staff had many more babies and bought more homes, Price told Insider.
The Seattle-based company's starting wages used to be roughly $35,000, Price said. But for the company to thrive, he felt he needed to make sure all employees were making enough to look after themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I know some were suspect of this and rightfully so, but thankfully it turned out to be a huge success. Hopefully other companies will emulate. Capitalism is alive and well all over America.
Careful. Bernie has praised this story.
This is a good story, I am one of those surprised, but very glad to see it worked. Especially getting family creation out of it.
thanks for the post.
This company found that they could maneuver this into a net positive. The obvious fact being that it was not mandated. Most business models cannot afford these types of across-the-board increases. The market is to decide.
To me the key is not to guarantee everyone a minimum wage or make everyone equal, because we are not equal in skills and abilities, but to pay the workers that produce decent wages and if that means the CEO cannot make X millions while the workers make less than 50K then that is what is needed. Not government mandates but what we need are CEO’s that are trying to build and sustain something the right way. This is common sense 101. Unfortunately most CEO’s and or overseers in government are all about a zero sum game where they take from everyone else to get way ahead of them.
I am also surprised but being the realist I am, I think a deeper dive into the company and who it employs is worthwhile. Do they contract out low level work? Any custodial staff on payroll? Clerks? Phone bank/ telemarketers? Or are such employees a limited number in a company of 120?
I am wary of this story. More to it, I suspect, than is written in this article.
Did the company receive subsidies?
This is a great way for capitalism to work.
35,000 in Seattle is pretty much a nonstarter. Especially for the current labor situation.
This would happen if we didn’t flood the country with low wage /no skill workers or make outsourcing so lucrative. That’s more of a government problem than business (though businesses own a lot of our politicians)
I have always thought that if I ever opened my own business, I would handicap my own income and pay my employees as much as possible.
That said, as a matter of personal freedom and basic economics, this cannot be mandated by the government.
Thank you. Great article that brings facts to the table. The company was unable to sustain the desired salaries under financial stress. Some volunteered to take salary cuts, some not. That’s all good at first...Reality impacts lofty ideals.
Company’s 1-Year Stock Change -31.63%
Exactly.
As long as it’s from his own assets it’s his to do as he pleases.
It should never be a “law”.
Maybe I’m confused, but I heard a story about a company that decided to give every employee a $70K salary (not minimum, but everyone the same salary). And Bernie praised this, which would make sense. Then a couple months ago I heard on a radio show that the owner admitted it was a big failure since highly experienced/educated/productive employees didn’t like getting the same pay as less experienced/educated/productive employees, which also makes sense. And they switched back to the old system. Maybe it was two different companies, or one of these was fake news, or I’m just confused.
UNION contracts have tried to “equalize’ workers worth for years.
The worst part of such contracts is that the worst workers get paid the same amount as the BEST workers.
OREO COOKIES come from Nabisco-—NOT from Mother Nature.
It proves that civil society and individuals can take take care of people and society completely without (and far better than) the involvement of government.
So I’m guessing he doesn’t employ 125 Haitian illegal immigrants
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