What then is the purpose of making such a press event out of it? It's clearly them promoting their brand by jumping onto the fairness bandwagon. That doesn't mean the CEO doesn't actually believe in it - he probably does - but it means that they wanted to do it in a way that makes a spectacle out of it.

As others have pointed out though, all it's doing is moving up the skillset requirements of people they hire in the future. So while it helps the few people who are already on-board by getting a raise (which is great by itself), it likely wont help an entry level person who now won't be hired in at 70k.