text: Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, is slashing his own salary 93percent . The CEO of a Seattle startup has instituted a $70,000 minimum wage at his credit card processing company - and he's paying for it by slashing his $1million salary to the same as his lowest-paid worker. He's also taking up to 80percent of the firm's $2.2million expected profit to plow it back in to staff salaries. Over the next three years, Gravity Payments will offer at least $70,000 salary to all of its 120 employees - even the most junior customer service representatives and clerks, CEO Dan Price told the New York Times this week. 'Is anyone else freaking out right now? I’m kind of freaking out,' he told his cheering employees at a meeting on Monday afternoon. The policy will raise the wages for 70 of the company's workers - more than half the staff. The Times was present at Price's announcement. Even if the $70,000 minimum wage is a publicity stunt, it's one that will cost him big time. Price is slashing his own salary by 93percent - more depending on what portion of the company's profits he was planning to take home. Price founded Gravity Payments in 2004 when he was 19 and working out of his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University. The company processes credit card payments for small businesses. Price said told the Times he was motivated to make the radical change after reading a study about how much pay raises increase happiness for people making less than $70,000 a year. He also was distressed hearing the struggles of his friends and family who make far less money than he does. Happy workers: Price said the move will eat up 93percent of his current salary and 80percent of his annual profits . 'They were walking me through the math of making $40,000 a year. '...I hear that every single week. That just eats at me inside.' The move comes at a time when CEO pay is 300 times the average employee pay at large companies - among the highest level of inequality in history. Price claims he's a man of few vices. He takes snowboarding trips and likes to pick up the tab at dinner and when he's out with friends. Otherwise, he says, he drives a 12-year-old Audi.
target: Dan Price, founder of Gravity Payments, will slash his salary to $70,000 and raise the minimum wage for his 120 employees to $70,000 .
  The move, in the next three years, will also require Price to plow up to 80percent of his firm's $2.2million profits back into salaries .
  He says he was inspired to make the bold step after reading that happiness increases dramatically for people earning over $70,000 .