A Capitalist Solution: Why every worker in America should make $70,000

I do not care about money.

I am worth upwards of three million dollars. I take home a seven-figure salary. I own a million-dollar home with a view of the Seattle waterfront, and if I sold my company tomorrow, I could live lavishly without ever having to work again. I do not care about money because I do not need to worry about money.

In 2015, I announced a $70,000 minimum wage for everybody at my company, Gravity Payments. No one forced me to do this, nor did I have any outside investors or government mandates twisting my arm. I did it because I wanted my team to have the same dispassionate relationship with money as I do.

In a 2010 study, researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton showed that as a person’s salary increases toward $75,000 a year, their well-being increases along with it. After that point, any increase in salary has an almost nonexistent correlation to increased well-being. I believe this is because when people earn more than about $70,000, they can stop worrying about how they’re going to pay the bills. They now have the luxury of caring less about money.

Implementing a $70,000 compensation structure is not feasible for every business, but every worker in America can still make $70,000.

The first step is to be explicit with your employer about your financial and professional goals. Don’t be shy about your salary desires, but make sure to explain to your boss why you want to make what you want to make. Put your goals in writing, and get your boss’s feedback before you set out to achieve them. You’ll need your boss’s support during this process.

After you engage your boss, take a good look at your company’s clients. At the end of the day, your clients, not your employer, pay your salary, so it is important to understand how to make them happy. If you don’t work in a client-facing role, ask those who do, like customer service and sales representatives, for insight. You should also spend time investigating what advantages your competitors have over your company or what new technologies, laws, or policies are emerging in the industry that will affect how you do business.

Once you have an idea about how to best serve your clients and you understand the industry landscape, research the economic metrics that drive the business. What are the numbers your company uses to gauge success? What data points are important to your CEO? Sales numbers, client attrition, revenue, and profit are likely candidates. Be relentlessly proactive in finding the answers, and keep questioning until you do.

Once you are armed with this information, tie it back to your supervisor. What are her key performance indicators? For example, the CEO may be looking at overall sales, but your direct supervisor may be more concerned with improving customer approval ratings for a particular product. Her next promotion or raise probably depends on these data points and should be important to you.

Finally, ask for feedback, but ask to be assessed by the standards of the job you want, not the job you have. This way you’ll know exactly which skills and traits you need to achieve your professional and financial goals.

Once you can articulate the economics of your company and the metrics used to gauge your boss’s success, get to work. Make your boss’s life easy while making her look good to her boss. Focus on the information you’ve discovered, and do everything with an eye toward these items. Try to reduce or eliminate the time your boss spends wondering how and what you are doing.

If there is no position available at your company that would justify your compensation goal, you may have to look at other options. If you discover you need to leave the company to accomplish your goal, you and your boss should come to this conclusion together. You’ll be able to part ways on good terms and leverage your boss’s network. If you are honest with her, you’ll be surprised how helpful she will be in supporting you during a transition to a new company.

Everyone deserves a chance at a decent lifestyle, and everyone has the ability to work as hard as he or she possibly can. You might not make $70,000 today, but if you partner with your employer, you can, and you will.

The book of Timothy tells us, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.” Those seduced by the temptation to always make more find themselves constantly driving toward their next million dollars at the expense of their employees, customers, friends, and loved ones. Equally as susceptible to the dangers of a mercenary lifestyle are those who never have enough. If you find yourself on either side of these economic extremes, find a way to stop caring about money. Don’t wait for your boss or your congressman to set your pay. Do it for yourself.