CEO who gave employees $70K minimum wage says revenue tripled 6 years later

A CEO who cut his own salary to give all of his employees a minimum wage of at least $70,000 per year says his company’s revenue has tripled since he made the move. 

“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,” Dan Price, the CEO of Seattle-based credit card processing company Gravity Payments, tweeted Tuesday. “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,” he added.  

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 

Price said since creating a $70,000 minimum wage his workforce has grown by 70 percent and his revenue tripled. The company’s customer base has also doubled, he said in a post on Twitter. 

The CEO has appeared on various financial cable news channels in recent years to spread his business philosophy of spending more on employees rather than cutting expenses and trimming fat. 

“We started our $70k min wage with about 130 employees in Seattle,” Price said. “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.” 

Gravity Payments in 2019 acquired ChargeItPro, an Idaho-based company. The employees in Idaho were also given the $70,000 per year minimum wage guarantee. 

Price celebrated the personal accomplishments of many of his employees in a Twitter thread this week, something he attributes to their happiness and productivity at his company. 

“Babies had by staff grew 10x *70% of employees paid down debt *Homes bought by employees grew 10x *401(k) contributions grew 155%,” he tweeted. “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.” 

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

The news comes following remarks Price made in an interview with Hill.TV in January, stating his support for a so-called billionaire’s tax that progressive lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have called for. 

“We have a $3.3 billion budget shortfall — the lawmakers have to find that money somewhere,” he said in reference to his home state of Washington. “You can cut schools and kids’ programs, education, health in a pandemic. You can take it from small businesses. You can take it from our dwindling middle class, but none of this stuff makes any sense.”