The CEO who slashed his own salary in 2015 to boost his company’s minimum salary to $70,000 a year, Dan Price, is at it again.
Price, 35, is the head of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company in Seattle that acquired Idaho company ChargeItPro three years back.
The Idaho-based employees recently moved into a new office building and Price flew in to give them all an amazing surprise: he decided to give his employees earning the current minimum salary a $10,000 raise with plans on raising it to a minimum of $70,000 by 2024.
“This morning we cut the ribbon on the new @GravityPymts Boise office AND announced that all of our employees here will start earning our $70k min salary,” Price shared via Twitter on Tuesday. “I’m so grateful to work with this amazing team and to be able to compensate them for the value they bring to our community.”
Most of the employees were making $30,000, so doubling their salary is one massive upgrade.
A majority of the employees were making below $30,000, ABC News reported, so more than doubling their salary in a matter of years will unquestionably be life-changing.
Initially, Price made massive waves back in 2015 when he increased the minimum wage of the employees in Gravity’s Seattle office to $70,000, and cut his own $1 million salary by 90 percent.
“I’m sick of being part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution,” Price shared at the time. “Previously, I was making a million dollars a year and people working for me were making $30,000 a year and that’s wrong, I was feeding into the problem.”
In a post to Instagram this past Wednesday, Price shared that giving up his million-dollar salary to benefit his employees was not an “unreasonable sacrifice.”
“A lot of people think giving up a million dollar a year salary and millions in profit is an unreasonable sacrifice to pay a living wage and give small businesses white-glove service,” Price wrote. “Well, I am proof of one thing. It is worth it.”
The Idaho-based employees were elated and Price says how has already heard how the raise has made an impact on their lives.
“I heard from somebody who was a single parent that they were not necessarily going to need to work two jobs anymore and they were going to be a better parent.”
Can you say best boss ever?!