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$16 per hour.

This amount is above the national minimum wage,

and it may seem like enough for entry-level employees.

But based on their circumstances, it may be far from enough.

What if a person's a single parent? What if they send money every month to a relative in need?

What if they're still struggling to pay a $50,000 medical bill from an accident a few years ago?

Even if you look at the average hourly money, bill from an accident a few years ago.

Even if you look at the average hourly market rate across the U.S.

$30 per hour may not be enough to keep people from living on the financial brink.

When you look beyond averages and market rates

and try to see people's real lives,

you may encounter a startling truth

that even profitable companies that think they're paying their

employees fairly may have employees who are barely getting by. So what can you do about that?

Welcome to the TED Business Podcast.

I'm your host, Madupa Akenola, Associate Professor of Management at Columbia Business School and

Director of the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics.

Today, Dan Scholman offers insight into a new metric that PayPal invented, net disposable income, that can help

organizations determine if they're paying their employees enough.

Dan Shulman is the president and CEO of PayPal and chairman of the board of Symantec.

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