[Dan Price image from Gravity Payments Facebook page]

New Minimum Wage: $70,000 per year

Just when life gets you down, after you’ve told your tale a thousand times with few listeners, and you’re at the point of banging your head on the door of despair—along comes a young, energetic kid who completely revives your faith in humanity. His name is Dan Price, age 30, who is CEO of Gravity Payments in Seattle, WA, a small credit card processing company with 120 employees. His announcement: He is cutting his pay to $70,000 and he is making $70,000 the minimum wage for all his employees.

Holy flying meat balls!

In this age of unthinkable income inequality, Dan Price has made a clean break with the status quo, with all CEOs everywhere, and with the mentality that slops at the trough of greed, luxury, and “screw you America.”

Dan Price, his company, and his employees comprise the “perfect storm” in a sea of greed engineered by a few billionaires. In contrast to relying on the brute force of money, power, and tax advantages, Gravity Payments offers a new approach to business via business analytics, new software, and new cost saving strategies for small businesses, all under the control of young energetic minds at work—the antithesis of the Koch brothers power grabs, extreme wealth, and all they embody.

During the next three years everyone at Gravity Payments who is making less than $70,000 will have his/her pay raised in increments to $70,000. His own pay will fall from about $1,000,000 to $70,000. He relies on research that shows most Americans believe that $70,000 is the level that will assure them a reasonable shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

As much as Price’s approach diverges from business-as-usual, the entire country could follow his lead. America creates enough income and wealth to pay everyone who works here—not $70,000 per year—but $100,000 per year. That will not happen, but there is enough personal income in the economy for that possibility. The math is simple: Divide the total income pool by the number of participants and the average comes to $99,665.

$14.45 X 10^9 / 145 X 10^6 = $99,665

Needless to say, Gravity Payments’ incoming phone calls and emails are jammed today with applicants seeking employment.

Did I mention that Dan Price was honored last year by Entrepreneur magazine as CEO of the Year? It looks like he will win it again. Steve Allen once put this moment in a song, "This could be the start of something big!"