Gravity Payments CEO To Cut His $1 Million Salary — Sets Minimum Wage At $70,000 For All Jobs

If ever there is a popular website address right now, it’s most likely this Careers at Gravity Payments page. That’s because Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price just announced that he’s amazingly slicing his own salary from $1 million and ultimately raising all of the salaries of the 120 people who work for the company to $70,000 minimum — even though it will take the next three years to get to at least $70,000 each as a minimum salary, reports the New York Times.

It was a curious and detailed article evaluating whether or not money could buy happiness that Dan read from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America called “High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being” that began to change the CEO’s mind about what level of income represents the ultimate sweet spot in happiness — and perhaps the below finding that caused the Gravity Payments head honcho to hover around the $70,000 salary minimum as a great wage.

“In the present study, we confirm the contribution of higher income to improving individuals’ life evaluation, even among those who are already well off. However, we also find that the effects of income on the emotional dimension of well-being satiate fully at an annual income of ~$75,000, a result that is, of course, independent of whether dollars or log dollars are used as a measure of income.”

According to Fox, the new $70,000 minimum wage per year rule means that some Gravity Payments employees will experience a 100 percent increase in pay, seeing as though 30 of 120 employees on staff make approximately $35,000 or less per year working there. The average salary for all employees as of this writing is $48,000 — so expect that average to fall exactly at $70,000 by 2018, at which point Price himself will drop his nearly $1 million per year salary down to $70,000 as well.

While the unique move is being called a publicity stunt by some, others are keeping a keen eye of interest on the financial moves of Price, who, as a 19-year-old in 2004, started the credit-card payment processing company. When Price made the announcement to his employees on Monday, he explained that those making the least, including clerks and customer service reps to sales employees, would enjoy the new $70,000 minimum salary, building over the next three years — paid for not only via Dan cutting his almost $1 million salary down to $70,000, but also by using a large chunk of the firm’s estimated $2.2 million profit in 2015 to foot the bill.

“Is anyone else freaking out right now? I’m kind of freaking out.”

Apparently, there was stunned silence, and then a round of rousing clapping.

As reported by the Inquisitr, CEO salaries are always a hotbed topic, usually making the news because of their hefty sums, not because of CEOs taking nearly $1 million salary cuts down to $70,000 per year.

[Image via Gravity Payments]