Gravity Payment worker celebrates $70K salary

Cody Boorman was among the many Gravity Payments employees who received a considerable pay bump this week when CEO Dan Price announced that the company’s minimum wage is now $70,000.

“It was a total shock,” Boorman told David Boze on 770 AM KTTH Thursday.

Boorman applauded the raise along with Gravity’s other 120 employees.

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He was making $41,000 and now makes $50,000 after the announcement. His pay will jump to $70,000 over the next three years. Boorman said he will move up his plans to start a family.

Boze, on the other hand, is wary of the raise because it’s possible that the initial high of giving the raises can wear off.

“The initial outburst is fun, but over time it’s not as fun,” Boze said.

Boze also notes that studies have shown that financial habits follow people at any pay rate. Something that could be of concern should a person add expenses to their lifestyle, such as having children.

“Whatever habits they had at $40,000 follow them to wherever they end up,” Boze said. “People who spend more than they earn every month, whether they make $40,000 or $100,000 they are still going to have the same problem, the same stress of debt.”

“Have you gone around the film to see if there is anybody on camera that maybe was making $80,000 before or $75,000 before, and they are sitting there looking a little sour, thinking, ‘Hey wait a second, I was doing all this other stuff and everybody else got this massive raise and
I’m not getting jack squat,'” Boze said.

Boorman said that employees are mainly elated over the raises and there haven’t been any sour attitudes.

“One thing that you are mentioning is that he is giving away this money, but to me it’s really an investment in, arguably a business’ most valuable resource, and that’s their staff,” Boorman said. “Instantly, he maximized employee productivity and work ethic.”

But as Boze puts it, the raise is still overdoing it in terms of productivity.

“There are a lot less expensive ways to maximize that kind productivity,” Boze said. “If a job is worth $41,000, for example, and you give somebody a boost to $45,000, that’s not bad and exciting. You don’t have to go to $70,000.”

Boze contends that a raise of $10,000 can obtain the same effect on employees as the $70,000 bump.

“Another way to look at it is that it is rewarding what we have been doing over the past few years,” Boorman responded. “When he started this company, people in those most senior positions were making $24,000 a year … he always had in his mind that when he reached a certain profitability point, he wanted to give some of that back.”

Price took a risk when he was 19-years-old in founding Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company. He felt he could provide the service better than the larger companies that dominated the market.

Now, 11 years later, he is CEO of the Ballard company with profits exceeding $2 million.