Here's What Really Happened At That Company That Set a $70,000 Minimum Wage

[ZiprHead]

I remember this was a subject here a few years ago.

Dan Price decided to pay all 120 employees at least $70,000. Grown men cried. Profits soared. Then things got really crazy.

And business owners will stay focused on him. The Dan Price Pay Experiment will either be hailed as a stroke of genius showing that entrepreneurs have underpaid their workforces to their companies' detriment, or as proof positive that Gravity is being run by a well-intentioned fool.

 

[barbos]

Not this shit again.
First. Even if it is true, which probably is not, it does not prove anything. We don't know how that company is structured, maybe they outsource their all 12 low paying jobs. There is no chance Walmart can do that.
Second. 70K salaries probably means that this industry (as a whole) grossly overcharge its customers. Great, he may have proven that.

Such experiments (UBI included) are stupid. They are conducted within a current stupid system where 80% of jobs are useless (his company is 100% useless and should not exist).

 

[Trausti]

Congrats. I am certainly okay with anyone testing this with their own company. Probably does build some employee loyalty. Just don't make it a government mandate.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not this shit again.
First. Even if it is true, which probably is not, it does not prove anything. We don't know how that company is structured, maybe they outsource their all 12 low paying jobs. There is no chance Walmart can do that.
Second. 70K salaries probably means that this industry (as a whole) grossly overcharge its customers. Great, he may have proven that.

Such experiments (UBI included) are stupid. They are conducted within a current stupid system where 80% of jobs are useless (his company is 100% useless and should not exist).

"Handwave handwave, handwave handwave handwave. Handwave (handwave handwave)."

I can smell your hurting butt from here. All you have is maybes, substanceless implications of fraud and lies, straw man arguments, hypocrisy (suddenly it is unethical overcharging now? What did you have to say about Pharma bro? I thought the purpose of a free market according to you "capitalists" was to be able to leverage as much profit as you can?), And then more summaries of your hand waving on a premise already proven false.

I know for a fact that my ass would feel pretty spicy after dropping a turd like that, I can't imagine what your fingers/mouth must feel like.

 

[Trausti]

Not this shit again.
First. Even if it is true, which probably is not, it does not prove anything. We don't know how that company is structured, maybe they outsource their all 12 low paying jobs. There is no chance Walmart can do that.
Second. 70K salaries probably means that this industry (as a whole) grossly overcharge its customers. Great, he may have proven that.

Such experiments (UBI included) are stupid. They are conducted within a current stupid system where 80% of jobs are useless (his company is 100% useless and should not exist).

Eh, the more entertaining speculation is that Dan did this to spite his brother. Once it took off and he was hailed a saint, he got stuck with it. Still, I'd not poo-poo a CEO who's willing to cut his own salary to benefit his workers.

Gravity Payments' Dan Price Wins Court Battle With His Brother

 

[barbos]

Not this shit again.
First. Even if it is true, which probably is not, it does not prove anything. We don't know how that company is structured, maybe they outsource their all 12 low paying jobs. There is no chance Walmart can do that.
Second. 70K salaries probably means that this industry (as a whole) grossly overcharge its customers. Great, he may have proven that.

Such experiments (UBI included) are stupid. They are conducted within a current stupid system where 80% of jobs are useless (his company is 100% useless and should not exist).

"Handwave handwave, handwave handwave handwave. Handwave (handwave handwave)."

I can smell your hurting butt from here. All you have is maybes, substanceless implications of fraud and lies, straw man arguments, hypocrisy (suddenly it is unethical overcharging now? What did you have to say about Pharma bro? I thought the purpose of a free market according to you "capitalists" was to be able to leverage as much profit as you can?), And then more summaries of your hand waving on a premise already proven false.

I know for a fact that my ass would feel pretty spicy after dropping a turd like that, I can't imagine what your fingers/mouth must feel like.

?
I am not a capitalist. I am all for UBI, free education and bending Pharma over and fucking them mercilessly.
But what we have here is a publicity stunt.
US GDP is $67K/person I don't know what is the average tax and how many people are actually in the work force for that but it's pretty close to be mathematical impossibility to have minimum wage $70K.
Doctors and University of Michigan $400K/year diversicrats would revolt, and I am pretty sure lots of celebrities would too.
Again, these experiments are useless regardless of the outcome.

here is a better number:
https://policyadvice.net/blog/average-american-income/

The 35–44 age group had the highest annual average of all other groups with $50,752.

good luck having minimum higher than average of the highest paid age group

 

[DBT]

Workers are routinely exploited. Very few businesses pay more than they need to. It's virtually systemic. The whole idea of business is to keep running costs down in order to maximize profits.

 

[bigfield]

I remember this was a subject here a few years ago.

Dan Price decided to pay all 120 employees at least $70,000. Grown men cried. Profits soared. Then things got really crazy.

I skimmed the story--I really don't want to read Dan Price's life story--and this part stood out:

The plan will eventually double the salaries of 30 workers and give raises to 40 more making less than $70,000. Phased in over three years, this will cost $1.8 million. The minimum jumped to $50,000 immediately and will climb by $10,000 in each of the next two years; those who earn $50,000 to $70,000 will get $5,000 raises. Price has vowed not to raise prices, lay off staff, or cut executive pay. More than half the cost will be offset by Price's pay cut. Unless revenue grows, the rest will be covered by that $2.2 million profit, leaving little margin for error.

It appears that Price hasn't actually started paying employees a minimum of $70,000, yet.

The article is a puff piece about the righteous and reformed Dan Price. Please buy shares in Gravity Payments, please consider Gravity Payments for your merchant payment needs, etc.

Let's revisit this story again in 2.5 years when Gravity is actually doing what the headline says it's doing.

ETA: "...successful case study at Harvard Business School"? Come on.

 

[barbos]

As I said, it's not even true.

 

[DBT]

As I said, it's not even true.

The quote says ''the minimum jumped to $50,000 immediately and will climb by $10,000 in each of the next two years''

 

[barbos]

As I said, it's not even true.

The quote says ''the minimum jumped to $50,000 immediately and will climb by $10,000 in each of the next two years''

According to Dan Price

 

[DBT]

As I said, it's not even true.

The quote says ''the minimum jumped to $50,000 immediately and will climb by $10,000 in each of the next two years''

According to Dan Price

Is there anything to say it didn't happen as reported?

 

[barbos]

According to Dan Price

Is there anything to say it didn't happen as reported?

We don't know anything. All we know are Dan Price's claims.

 

[J842P]

According to Dan Price

Is there anything to say it didn't happen as reported?

We don't know anything. All we know are Dan Price's claims.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that a company paid everyone at least 70k? Honestly, for the type of company and the location, that isn't particularly unbelievable.

 

[barbos]

We don't know anything. All we know are Dan Price's claims.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that a company paid everyone at least 70k? Honestly, for the type of company and the location, that isn't particularly unbelievable.

I honestly don't know how workers are usually paid in bill processing companies. I am not even sure what exactly do they do.
I suspect that credit card companies outsource bill sending to local processing centers, it saves them money on mail I suspect.
And the business is essentially printing presses/printers and workers are running it. They also process checks I suspect. Really, don't see the need for 4 years college, let alone PhD in check processing.

I would appreciate if you correct me if I am wrong.

 

[DBT]

We are not given any reason to think that it didn't happen as reported. It's not really an unlikely thing to happen, so unless there is information to the contrary, it's a fair assumption that it did happen.

 

[barbos]

We are not given any reason to think that it didn't happen as reported. It's not really an unlikely thing to happen, so unless there is information to the contrary, it's a fair assumption that it did happen.

reported by Dan Price. And what exactly was reported? Arte they now paid $70K minimum?
He did NOT seem to report that at all.

 

[TV and credit cards]

It may have been mentioned in the Inc. article and I missed it doing a bottom up read of that wordy piece but it states in this Geekwire article that back in March when the virus hit revenue hard, the employees stepped up and volunteered to take pay cuts rather than some getting laid-off. Moreover, Socialist Dan refuses to raise prices on the company's customers, their being mostly in hospitality. He thinks it would be unconscionable to do so. How unAmerican.

 

[J842P]

We don't know anything. All we know are Dan Price's claims.

Why is it so hard for you to believe that a company paid everyone at least 70k? Honestly, for the type of company and the location, that isn't particularly unbelievable.

I honestly don't know how workers are usually paid in bill processing companies. I am not even sure what exactly do they do.
I suspect that credit card companies outsource bill sending to local processing centers, it saves them money on mail I suspect.
And the business is essentially printing presses/printers and workers are running it. They also process checks I suspect. Really, don't see the need for 4 years college, let alone PhD in check processing.

I would appreciate if you correct me if I am wrong.

Well, no. It's a tech company. I don't think there's any printing presses/printers involved at all, or any "runners", or any physical checks. Everything is done electronically. You basically have a bunch of engineers/ software people, then the standard business people like sales, marketing etc. Those people would be making at or more than 70k already. Then the support people, basically, people who deal with onboarding new customers, or helping existing customers that are having problems with your product.

Looking at their current positions, it looks like technical support analyst is one of the lower positions. These are the people that might have been paid something like 40-50k and are now making 70k.

But that isn't what I asked, I asked why you think that paying about 100 people 70k a year is so implausible. At least before COVID, their revenue was like 4 million a month. You act as if it is on its face absurd. That sounds like it might be cutting it close, but hardly impossible.

Also, what does education level have to do with it? Factory workers used to routinely make a comparable amount of money, adjusted for inflation, with only a high school diploma.

I know a couple guys who made 80k+ a few years out of high school after doing a technical certification, like HVAC, and working a couple years as a technician. By the time they were like 25 and I was barely finishing up grad school, they were making well into six figures and starting their own business.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I remember this was a subject here a few years ago.

Dan Price decided to pay all 120 employees at least $70,000. Grown men cried. Profits soared. Then things got really crazy.

I skimmed the story--I really don't want to read Dan Price's life story--and this part stood out:

The plan will eventually double the salaries of 30 workers and give raises to 40 more making less than $70,000. Phased in over three years, this will cost $1.8 million. The minimum jumped to $50,000 immediately and will climb by $10,000 in each of the next two years; those who earn $50,000 to $70,000 will get $5,000 raises. Price has vowed not to raise prices, lay off staff, or cut executive pay. More than half the cost will be offset by Price's pay cut. Unless revenue grows, the rest will be covered by that $2.2 million profit, leaving little margin for error.

It appears that Price hasn't actually started paying employees a minimum of $70,000, yet.

The article is a puff piece about the righteous and reformed Dan Price. Please buy shares in Gravity Payments, please consider Gravity Payments for your merchant payment needs, etc.

Let's revisit this story again in 2.5 years when Gravity is actually doing what the headline says it's doing.

ETA: "...successful case study at Harvard Business School"? Come on.

The cited story appears to be from November 2015, so that would be before the fact.