‘Hero boss’ gave staff a minimum £51K wage after one took a second job at McDonald’s

A CEO who gave all his employees a minimum wage of $70,000 (£51,300) has insisted six years later that it has paid off.

Dan Price, 37 years old, is the boss at Gravity Payments, a credit card payment firm. He increased the salaries of his staff after learning that one employee had taken a second job with McDonald’s to supplement their income.

The staff member, on a £31,000 salary, was struggling with her bills living in Seattle, US, reports the Mirror.

Price also slashed his own salary by £730,000 to help fund the pay rises, as well as selling a second home and spending some of his savings.

He lowered his own salary to around £51,300, the same as his lowest-paid employee.

There was much debate at the time, with some saying that Price would go bankrupt while others saying that he was a hero boss.

But six years on and the move has paid off, Price told CBS News.

He is still paying his employees at least £51,300, and he said that Gravity has tripled in size since the move.

He said that he has an extremely loyal staff which is a benefit because they are more productive and stay with him for longer periods of time.

“Our turnover rate was cut in half, so when you have employees staying twice as long, their knowledge of how to help our customers skyrocketed over time and that’s really what paid for the raise more so than my pay cut,” he said.

Staff recently gathered together to buy Price a new Tesla in return for the sacrifices they made.

“My employees have done way more for me than I could ever do for them. So the fact that they wanted to get me such an unreal, amazing gift, it’s pretty special. I don’t know if I can put it into words,” Price stated.

Price, who started Gravity at age 20 in 2004, is outspoken against the excesses and high pay of executives.

Research showed last month that more than five million people became millionaires during the pandemic, meaning that there are now around 56 million millionaires in the world.

Credit Suisse’s analysis shows that the UK has the fifth highest proportion of high-net-worth individuals, at 4%.

The United States has 39% more millionaires than the rest.

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