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Small-business owner gives all three workers a raise

 
Published May 15, 2015

Andrew Green considered what he paid his workers and felt ashamed.

His Fort Lauderdale business, Green Solutions, has only three employees, but he decided he could do more to improve their lives in pricey South Florida.

So he gave them all raises — 35 percent to 50 percent.

"In South Florida, we're not really known for our high-paying jobs. ... We have a responsibility to take care of our employees," he said.

With that, the producer of DVDs and video packages became possibly the smallest example in a nationwide debate about appropriate pay.

Green, 53, was inspired to look at pay after hearing about Seattle's Gravity Payments, where CEO Dan Price took a 90-percent pay cut to gradually raise all of his employees' wages to $70,000 a year.

Price created a media stir, though some critics labeled his move a publicity stunt. He reportedly had read a study concluding that income makes a significant difference in a person's emotional well-being, up to the point of earning $75,000 a year.

"After that, I thought about it for a few days and looked at our numbers," Green said. "I had one employee who was almost full time, and I was paying her $10.50 an hour. This was disgusting."

He brought some of his employees to tears when he announced two weeks ago that he was giving them all raises. The lowest-paid employee saw her salary more than double, to $537 a week from $230. An experienced warehouse worker is now earning $730 a week, up from $500. And the operations manager's pay rose to $800 a week from $600.

The money makes a big difference, the employees said.

Green said he hopes that other local CEOs will consider raising wages to help workers with the high cost of living in the region.

Florida's minimum wage is tied to inflation and is currently $8.05 a hour.

Green said the pay increase will lower his profits by 12.5 percent. The 18-year-old business has annual revenues of about $2 million.

He and his wife have three children ages 11, 9 and 6.Green, who said he doesn't have Price's millionaire status, takes out of the business only as much as the family needs.

Accommodating his employees' raises "doesn't take much," he said.