Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price made it his mission to take care of his employees six years ago, prompting Fox News and conservatives to predict that his “socialist” company would fall apart, only for him to get the last laugh after productivity and profits soared.
Corporate America and the Republican Party have long resisted raising the minimum wage arguing that doing so is somehow bad for business. When Price made headlines by deciding to pay each of his 120 employees $70,000 a year, conservative media rushed to ridicule the move by accusing him of socialism and predicting that his employees would be waiting in bread lines soon enough.
Instead, not only did his employees flourish, his company grew to employ 200 people and profits jumped from $3 billion to a whopping $10 billion. Gravity Payments employees are happy and they are contributing to the economy by buying homes and cars while starting families because they can afford to do so.
This week, Price took aim at Fox News in a video posted on Twitter in celebration of his company’s success.
6 years ago today I raised my company’s min wage to $70k. Fox News called me a socialist whose employees would be on bread lines.
Since then our revenue tripled, we’re a Harvard Business School case study & our employees had a 10x boom in homes bought.
Always invest in people. pic.twitter.com/o7Ca7I4b7e
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
He then went on to explain how his company and his employees have benefited from his policy and why he instituted it in the first place.
Since our $70k min wage was announced 6 years ago today:
*Our revenue tripled
*Head count grew 70%
*Customer base doubled
*Babies had by staff grew 10x
*70% of employees paid down debt
*Homes bought by employees grew 10x
*401(k) contributions grew 155%
*Turnover dropped in half— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
After our $70k min wage:
*76% of employees are engaged at work, 2x the national average
*Customer attrition fell to 25% below nat’l average
*We expanded to a new Boise office & enacted $70k min wage there
*Our highest-paid employee makes 4x our lowest-paid employee, down from 33x— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
We started our $70k min wage with about 130 employees in Seattle.
It worked so well we expanded it to a new Boise office, where the cost of living is lower but people deserve good pay all the same.
We now have about 200 employeeshttps://t.co/0eJxdZYape
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
At the start of the pandemic, we lost 55% of our revenue overnight. Our employees were so invested they volunteered to take temporary pay cuts to prevent any layoffs.
We weathered the storm, paid everyone back and are now giving out raiseshttps://t.co/PjQenvxOPA
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
What helped inspire our $70k min wage?
An employee was secretly working a 2nd job at McDonald’s. It was clear I was an awful CEO who was failing his employees. I gave her a raise to quit that job. No one should have to work two jobs to make ends meet.https://t.co/hrgDYUDXYB
— Dan Price (@DanPriceSeattle) April 13, 2021
Despite claims of doom and gloom from conservatives, Price did right by his employees as any good employer should and proved in the process that taking care of one’s employees is what’s really good for business and the overall economy. That’s why raising the minimum wage should be a top priority and why Republicans can’t be trusted. If they had their way, we’d all be standing in bread lines.
Featured Image: Screenshot
