A decade on, CEO calls $70,000 minimum wage for employees ‘great business’

Ten years after making one of the most widely debated pay decisions in modern corporate history, Gravity Payments founder and CEO Dan Price says the move to introduce a $70,000 minimum wage for all employees has delivered results that are “not just moral – it’s great business.”

In a LinkedIn post marking the decade since the 2015 decision, Mr Price reflected on cutting his own salary from $1.1 million to $70,000 to fund a no-exceptions minimum wage across the company. At the time, the move drew intense scrutiny, with commentators predicting bankruptcy, job losses, and long-term damage to the business.

“Our new blog post marks this wild 10-year anniversary, and the results?” Mr Price wrote, before outlining a series of outcomes that challenge those early predictions.

According to Gravity Payments’ internal review, revenue has increased by 650 per cent since the minimum wage was introduced. Over the same period, the company’s workforce has roughly doubled to more than 200 full-time employees, while remaining profitable every year and carrying zero debt.

“There are lots of reasons Gravity has grown, but there is no doubt the minimum wage played a huge part,” the company said in its summary of the findings, describing a “virtuous cycle” in which higher wages helped attract both clients and talent, enabling further growth.

While the initial announcement generated significant publicity, the company noted that it also attracted strong criticism. Despite this, Gravity Payments went on to become the subject of a Harvard Business School case study highlighting its performance following the wage increase.

Internally, the changes appear to have had a lasting impact on workforce stability. Employee turnover fell from 22 per cent a decade ago to 6 per cent this year, while applications for open roles increased tenfold. Productivity, measured by revenue per employee, doubled over the same period.

The company also pointed to long-term retention as a key benefit. Half of its original six employees are still with the firm decades later, and more than one-third of the 120 employees working at Gravity in 2015 remain on staff today.

“There is a ton of data to suggest employees are more engaged when they feel valued, and that rang true here,” the company said, adding that higher pay also reduced recruitment, training, and hiring costs – expenses often overlooked in debates about wage increases.

Beyond balance-sheet metrics, Mr Price highlighted what he described as “real lives transformed” over the past decade. According to the company, employees have collectively recorded 75 marriages, 85 home purchases, and 115 children born since the wage policy was introduced. Employee debt levels have fallen, while retirement savings have increased by 250 per cent.

Gravity Payments later raised its internal minimum wage again to $80,000 in 2022 and introduced profit-sharing, with staff receiving an average $8,000 bonus last year. The company also adopted a remote-first approach, expanded parental leave, and maintained a record of zero layoffs.

Mr Price noted that Gravity’s CEO-to-median worker pay ratio now stands at 2.8:1, in stark contrast to trends elsewhere. “The harsh truth? Big corps aren’t following suit – CEO pay’s ballooned to 281x the median, while layoffs surge and profits fuel buybacks,” he wrote.

A contrast with Malta

Placed in a Maltese context, executive pay levels paint a more nuanced picture.

Analysis of remuneration reports of locally listed companies has shown that chief executives earn salaries that are well over ten times higher than the median wage in Malta (with a median annual salary of €267,000), even before factoring in bonuses, benefits, and other variable components. The gap between executive and employee pay is therefore significant by local standards, particularly when viewed alongside Malta’s relatively low national wage levels.

At the same time, these figures remain modest when compared to CEO remuneration in larger foreign markets, where executive pay packages routinely run into several millions and CEO-to-worker pay ratios stretch far beyond those typically seen in Malta. This contrast highlights how debates around pay inequality are highly relative: While Maltese executive salaries can appear high within a small economy, they still sit far below international benchmarks.

The experience of Gravity Payments ultimately adds another dimension to this discussion, raising broader questions about how value, leadership, and long-term business performance are rewarded.