CEO Who Raised Min. Wage: ‘Emotional Cost’ to Making Less than $70K

PRICE: "I realized that people are making less than that, there's an emotional cost that they have every single day and you only get to live once. So those are days that are lost in terms of being really -- live a full life. And so getting them there was really based on that research that Princeton did in 2010."

MASON (voice-over): "That Princeton study concluded that emotional wellbeing rises as one's income rises up to about $75,000 a year. The reaction of his 120 employees went from subdued shock to a standing ovation. Alisa O'Neil is a 21-year-old single mother who works in customer service. Overnight, her annual salary jumped from $37,000 to $50,000."

O'NEIL: "It just gives you a little bit more confidence in your ability to just go about your day and not going to have to worry about goin from paycheck to paycheck."

GARCIA: "Maybe I cried when i called my mom."

MASON (voice-over): "29-year old supervisor Jose Garcia has $54,000 in student debt. Now those loans will be easier to pay off."

GARCIA: "I think it's life-changing for everybody in various ways."

MASON (voice-over): "It's potentially life-changing for Price as well."

PRICE: "So I'm reducing my salary from a million a year to about $70,000."

MASON (voice-over): "But not even in corporate America can afford to make such drastic changes so quickly especially companies with large numbers of minimum wage workers."

LEVENSON: "It just doesn't make economic sense for the really large companies that have a lot of people like that to give huge raises like this. It can tip them from being profitable to be unprofitable which is why we're not going to see a huge stampede of companies doing this."

PRICE: "It's not about pay it's about an opportunity and developing people and giving them a chance to thrive and show that can do."

MASON (voice-over): "Dan Price admits the salary increases will cut his company profit in half in near term, but having happier more productive employees he believes will pay off in the long term."

PRICE: "You know, I want to be a part of the solution of inequality in this country, and so if corporate America also wants to be a part of that solution, that would make me really happy."