You’re ignoring how teams actually work in this analysis. You’re not giving one guy a raise, you’re giving everyone a raise. And they all know it. So your call

You’re ignoring how teams actually work in this analysis. You’re not giving one guy a raise, you’re giving everyone a raise. And they all know it. So your call center workers can quit their second jobs, and get to solutions much faster because they can think more clearly. Your admin people now want to do professional level work out of appreciation. Your sales team has enough money to live that they can focus on big clients rather than taking a bunch of tent accounts to get commissions every month. So the entire company starts to perform better, and because everyone is in a better mood they work together more too. This is all missed by a strictly Taylorist analysis treating each employee individually and assuming their output are independent. Humans are social and they need to sleep to operate well. Paying them more makes them more social and lets them rest more instead of working for someone else. By paying a living wage you’re effectively buying the highest productivity you can get from your team which happens to be a lot.