Company that set a minimum wage of $70,000/year facing some unexpected consequences

August 03, 2015

WRITER

The left championed Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price as a hero in the war against income inequality, but a few months after setting a minimum wage of $70k his business has encountered some unexpected problems. Well, unexpected if you don’t have any comprehension as to why socialist principles have categorically failed throughout history. It turns out that if you give the least skilled people at your company a huge pay raise, the highly skilled employees who carry the burden of getting the work done won’t be too happy to get nothing.

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Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it may contain errors:

STU: Someone else who had a pretty good business was Dan Price. Dan Price is 31 years old. CEO of a company. This is a company that does like internet transactions as far as like, you know, you're paying for things.

JEFFY: Online purchases.

STU: Like a PayPal type of thing. So he decided because he believes in what the left says about income inequality. Decided to change the structure of his company. He's CEO. Making a billion bucks a year. A bunch of people were making way less than that. Is that right? He says no. So he took a giant pay cut and brought himself down to $70,000 a year. He also at the same time decided to pay all of his employees at least $70,000 a year because, you know, income inequality. It's not about the job you're doing or how well you're doing it. Just everything needs to be income no matter what.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: So this was a big story. The New York Times picked it up. It was a -- it was a cause of the left for a couple of weeks. Now, what doesn't happen with those causes of the left is no one ever follows up on them. This time we'll give credit to FoxNews.com for doing so. They decided to call up Dan Price a few weeks later and say, hey, Dan, you had that company doing well and you decided to turn it into an example of socialism. How is that going for you? Working out well? Everything going great? Is that what we would expect? Well, he says, I'm working as hard as I ever worked to make it work. I'm renting out my house right now to make ends meet myself. This is with -- he's talking about the difficult struggle. However, the problem is, a lot of the good employees have left.

JEFFY: Yeah, they were kind of pissed, which is what we said.

STU: See, the new employees who were not doing as much work or not as high level in the company are making the same now as the people who have been there for a while and have built the company, which is kind of crazy.

He gives raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job. And the ones who were taking on the most didn't get much of a salary bump. This is from the financial manager. Mazy McCaster. She's 26. She said when she talked to Price about it, he treated her as if she was being selfish and only thinking about herself. That really hurt me, she said. I was talking about not only me, but everyone in my position. Approaching burnout, she quit.

Grant Morgan, 29, also quit saying the new pay scale was disconcerting. Now the people who were just clocking in and out were making the same as me. It shackles high performers to less motivated team members.

Price, now, this is the guy who is the boss, said both of these guys -- and also Rush Limbaugh and other talk show hosts who were critical of this, were not wrong. There's no perfect way to do this and to handle complex work issues that doesn't have any downsides or tradeoffs.

So he's now losing his good employees. He's keeping the old employees at inflated rates, and he's having major problems with his company. And there's a reason for that. Socialism doesn't work. It's not a system that ever worked.

JEFFY: He lost some of his clients as well over this transition. Some employees were wound up that if they were willing to do that, then maybe something else was wrong and they weren't going to get the service that they had been getting in the future.

Now he claims to have gotten new clients because of this. But that has not paid off yet.

STU: No, because those clients are like, you know what, we don't think it's right for us to be paying for these services. They should be free to everyone. We won't send in any payments. But they're new clients.

JEFFY: He's really struggling. And he's struggling with his brother who helped him start the business. Now he's phased out the brother. And the brother is like, I'm worth a little bit more than 70,000-dollar thing. I need a piece of the pie.

STU: Yeah, you'll notice that this doesn't happen in the businesses that liberals usually run. I'll give Dan Price a lot of credit here. You know, he's actually implementing these policies that you normally only see implemented by someone named Jong-il.

JEFFY: He seemed to think -- he didn't do it -- according to the story, when I read the latest catch-up story, he didn't do it, he claimed, because of the il factor. He just, you know, felt like he saw something that somebody was struggling. He heard one of his employees struggling about some sort of school or something. Gosh darn it.

STU: He did address the income inequality part of it though. Look, there's nothing wrong with believing that. This guy actually put it into practice. The left -- for example, Obama complains about women not being paid the same and then doesn't pay women as much as men in his own administration. Hillary Clinton, the same thing in the campaigns. We've see this over and over and over again. And it's really annoying. At least this guy is trying. The best that can happen -- is why we like federalism is that you can do these things. Test them out. We can all watch someone else fail at them. And then we can decide to do the right thing. That's what's good about this country. I'm all for this guy giving this a whirl. There's a lot of companies that try crazy things like that and they usually don't work. Everyone wants to come up with a new way of running the business. Because everyone else is so stupid. And they don't understand. And they're stodgy. And stuck in their old ways. A lot of those old ways work and they do something. That doesn't mean you constantly go on with the exact same process forever.

JEFFY: But we watch other companies grow and succeed and fail. And that's the way we learn. I mean, we learn that children should not put signs in front of their house to sell worms. It's illegal. Don't do it. Don't try to sell your product with a sign, kid.

Colorado counselor fights back after faith declared “illegal”

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The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

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I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

America’s moral erosion: How we were conditioned to accept the unthinkable

MATHIEU LEWIS-ROLLAND / Contributor | Getty Images

Every time we look away from lawlessness, we tell the next mob it can go a little further.

Chicago, Portland, and other American cities are showing us what happens when the rule of law breaks down. These cities have become openly lawless — and that’s not hyperbole.

When a governor declares she doesn’t believe federal agents about a credible threat to their lives, when Chicago orders its police not to assist federal officers, and when cartels print wanted posters offering bounties for the deaths of U.S. immigration agents, you’re looking at a country flirting with anarchy.

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic.

This isn’t a matter of partisan politics. The struggle we’re watching now is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s between good and evil, right and wrong, self‑government and chaos.

Moral erosion

For generations, Americans have inherited a republic based on law, liberty, and moral responsibility. That legacy is now under assault by extremists who openly seek to collapse the system and replace it with something darker.

Antifa, well‑financed by the left, isn’t an isolated fringe any more than Occupy Wall Street was. As with Occupy, big money and global interests are quietly aligned with “anti‑establishment” radicals. The goal is disruption, not reform.

And they’ve learned how to condition us. Twenty‑five years ago, few Americans would have supported drag shows in elementary schools, biological males in women’s sports, forced vaccinations, or government partnerships with mega‑corporations to decide which businesses live or die. Few would have tolerated cartels threatening federal agents or tolerated mobs doxxing political opponents. Yet today, many shrug — or cheer.

How did we get here? What evidence convinced so many people to reverse themselves on fundamental questions of morality, liberty, and law? Those long laboring to disrupt our republic have sought to condition people to believe that the ends justify the means.

Promoting “tolerance” justifies women losing to biological men in sports. “Compassion” justifies harboring illegal immigrants, even violent criminals. Whatever deluded ideals Antifa espouses is supposed to somehow justify targeting federal agents and overturning the rule of law. Our culture has been conditioned for this moment.

The buck stops with us

That’s why the debate over using troops to restore order in American cities matters so much. I’ve never supported soldiers executing civilian law, and I still don’t. But we need to speak honestly about what the Constitution allows and why. The Posse Comitatus Act sharply limits the use of the military for domestic policing. The Insurrection Act, however, exists for rare emergencies — when federal law truly can’t be enforced by ordinary means and when mobs, cartels, or coordinated violence block the courts.

Even then, the Constitution demands limits: a public proclamation ordering offenders to disperse, transparency about the mission, a narrow scope, temporary duration, and judicial oversight.

Soldiers fight wars. Cops enforce laws. We blur that line at our peril.

But we also cannot allow intimidation of federal officers or tolerate local officials who openly obstruct federal enforcement. Both extremes — lawlessness on one side and militarization on the other — endanger the republic.

The only way out is the Constitution itself. Protect civil liberty. Enforce the rule of law. Demand transparency. Reject the temptation to justify any tactic because “our side” is winning. We’ve already seen how fear after 9/11 led to the Patriot Act and years of surveillance.

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

Two dangers face us now: the intimidation of federal officers and the normalization of soldiers as street police. Accept either, and we lose the republic. The left cannot be allowed to shut down enforcement, and the right cannot be allowed to abandon constitutional restraint.

The real threat to the republic isn’t just the mobs or the cartels. It’s us — citizens who stop caring about truth and constitutional limits. Anything can be justified when fear takes over. Everything collapses when enough people decide “the ends justify the means.”

We must choose differently. Uphold the rule of law. Guard civil liberties. And remember that the only way to preserve a government of, by, and for the people is to act like the people still want it.