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Axios cherry picked the Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the 12 states that confirm the writer's bias. They should have analyzed all states with low minimum

Axios cherry picked the Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the 12 states that confirm the writer's bias. They should have analyzed all states with low minimum wages vs high minimum wages for the overall picture. Reports are out there showing while many of the minimum wage earners who have not lost jobs from the hourly increase are reporting weekly scheduled hours being cut back across the board.

dv_dt 7y ago
This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society. Without enforcing minimum wage, and perhaps least minimum full time to part time employment ratios, we face businesses competing on prices by undercutting labor instead of other avenues of improving operating efficiency.
- darawk 7y ago
  > This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society What does the minimum wage have to do with contribution to society? > Without enforcing minimum wage, and perhaps least minimum full time to part time employment ratios, we face businesses competing on prices by undercutting labor instead of other avenues of improving operating efficiency. Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. That might be a trade we're willing to make. There may be good reasons to make it, but it is not without cost.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    The markup on most products is such that US businesses could easily manufacture their products in the US at current minimum wages and still handily profit. They simply choose not to, because that means they have to pay their executives and owners less money and no executive wants to forego their country club membership, each of which is equal to the salary and benefits of 3 or more line workers, or their annual bonus, which is equal to the salary benefits of between 5 and 20 line workers. Or hell, the excess of what their salary is over the value they actually provide to the company (usually just a lit bit over an individual line workers' contribution).
    - RoyTyrell 7y ago
      > the excess of what their salary is over the value they actually provide to the company (usually just a lit bit over an individual line workers' contribution). Is that for every CEO at every corporation? How are you measuring and making that determination? Does that hold true for other executive positions?
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      > The markup on most products is such that US businesses could easily manufacture their products in the US at current minimum wages and still handily profit. What data are you basing this on? You're also ignoring the most important part - consumer choice. People buy cheap shit because it's cheaper. It's the foundation of Walmart. So let's say the companies here did manufacture here, but then a foreign competitor offers a significantly cheaper product - how do you reconcile that without going out of business?
      - didibus 7y ago
        I think that's precisely the issue. Economists thought that driving an open market would push up wages as efficiencies come back around, thus both driving for cheaper goods and higher wages. But they didn't anticipate exactly the effect of globalism and the exodus to China happening so quick. Foreign industries could be taxed to some level relative to what their workers are paid and their working conditions to even out the domestic companies disadvantages maybe. That's already happening to some extent. I don't know if that or fixed minimum wage is the solution by the way. But I'm saying clearly that's the problem. Companies don't all start with an equal footing, and that can put out of balance the free economy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/economists-globalization-trade-paul-krugman-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/economists-globalizatio... Edit: Eh, I forgot that you can't really have rational discussions on slightly political topics. If you think something I said isn't logical or true, please partake in the conversation.
        UnFleshedOne 7y ago
        > both driving for cheaper goods and higher wages This actually works -- cheaper goods for developed countries and higher wages for China. On the balance this is a win economically. Environmentally it is the opposite -- better for developed countries and worse for manufacturing ones.
  - Flozzin 7y ago
    If a business can only exist if you exploit your labor force, then maybe your business shouldn't exist. The portion of people that work jobs for fun or a little extra income are a minority. There are more examples of people working several minimum wage jobs just trying to survive. Maybe there is a compromise somewhere though. How about if you pay the minimum wage, then the owners/stake holders cannot make more than the lowest paid person. The head(s) of a company making good money(so I'm lumping some small businesses in here too), while saying that they just can't afford to pay their workers a decent wage, leave a bad taste in my mouth. Off topic, but I feel the same way about all the businesses saying we need cheap labor from Mexico or South America for the businesses to survive, since Americans won't do the job. It creates an underclass of people. If you can't find workers due to wage, and you cannot afford to pay more, the solution isn't to find a class of people that have it so bad, that living in poverty in America is a good option.
    - whatok 7y ago
      Businesses need cheap labor from outside of the US because everyone in x industry is using cheap labor that has an artificial ceiling due to years of unchecked illegal immigration. Competition in x industry is now centered around this new labor price point and in some cases is far below minimum wage. At that point, many drop out of the labor force instead of working a difficult and manual labor job that pays less than minimum wage. This is a failure of government to have a coherent and sensible immigration policy and an additional failure to deal with the spillover effects of not having one.
    - atypicality 7y ago
      > If a business can only exist if you exploit your labor force, then maybe your business shouldn't exist. Say bye-bye to your iPhone and all of your other beloved gadgets.
      - Flozzin 7y ago
        No reason to say goodbye to them. It would just mean that the price would have to increase, or the industries that produce them will have a smaller profit margin. Apple has $245 billion in cash right now.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. > The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. No. I'd say the bigger part of the reason was free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower wages, which encouraged job movement for little more than wage arbitrage reasons, minimum wage or no. The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. [1] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-household-income-per-capita https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-hous...
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      > Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No, they wouldn’t. Americans survived on wages lower than that in the past. They would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi —- unless you assume that Americans are somehow extremely inept compared to Bangladeshi.
      - CharlesColeman 7y ago
        >> Americans would starve and die of exposure [in America] on [Bangladeshi] wages. > No, they wouldn’t.... [Americans] would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi I appreciate your honesty, but listen to what you're saying. No one "simply" accepts massive regressions in living standards across large swaths of the economy, and that's exactly what you'd need for Bangladeshi wages to be livable in the US. That kind of thing leads to revolutions, and rightly so.
      - asdff 7y ago
        Are you implying that the people currently starving and dieing of exposure living in bangladeshi-style slums right on the streets of San Fransisco is an acceptable outcome? We should be paying more people a wage that forces them to live like that? Or do we look at the growing inequality in this country and realize we can definitely afford to add a couple bucks to a poor guys hourly rate so he doesn't have to give 60% of his income to the parasite landlord every month.
  - jonhendry18 7y ago
    "Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though" If they require lower wages in order to be sufficiently profitable, but those lower wages mean the employees have to rely on taxpayer funded safety nets to survive, maybe the business shouldn't exist? Because otherwise this is essentially a demand for taxpayers to subsidize the profits of a private enterprise. If Target and Walmart need employees on food stamps in order to make a profit, maybe we should just fully nationalize them instead of just subsidizing their profits.
  - Eric_WVGG 7y ago
    > > This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society > What does the minimum wage have to do with contribution to society? Seven years ago, the McDonalds corporation issued memos to employees instructing on how to file for SNAP (food stamps). Rather than paying employees what they need to survive, McDonalds was effectively shifting that cost onto taxpayers. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/instead-living-wage-mcdonalds-tells-workers-sign-food-stamps/309625/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/instead... A system where jobs provide money to consumers who participate in the economy, pay into social security, etc. is one that makes a "positive contribution" to societal balance sheet. One that hoards its income and doesn't pay into the system costs society money, hence "a net negative". "Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though." Right, but some businesses can pay minimum-wage-or-higher and be profitable, but the CEOs figured out that they can just keep that money for themselves and shift it onto the welfare system. This is why a lot of critics of modern capitalism claim that we already have socialism, we're just not doing it efficiently.
  - sjg007 7y ago
    Same with illegal immigration. Some businesses won't be profitable or exist without them.
- maxk42 7y ago
  On the contrary, many of the lowest-paid jobs are lowest-paid because they're non-profits, volunteer organizations, or other organizations that provide some social benefit. Raising the minimum wage prevents these organizations from doing as much good for society.
Pigo 7y ago
I've read reports of Target, and similar companies, cutting back hours of many employees. I take such reports as anecdotal, but I didn't catch them talking about this in the article at all.
- Cheyana 7y ago
  I work part-time stocking shelves at a Walmart, and I can say from first-hand experience that while there is talk of cutting hours, the reality is that it won't happen at this time. Shelves don't stock themselves. Robots are a long way away, no matter what you hear, as the current process is inefficient enough to make it difficult for automation. Robots won't clean poop out of the urinals, or off the floors (yes, people do take a shit where they are not supposed to). I can also guarantee you that Walmart is not hurting by paying people 11 bucks an hour, and they still won't be hurting if they raise it by a couple of bucks. The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. Employees are necessary, and will be for a while.
  - blix 7y ago
    > The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. High minimum wages favor larger entities than can leverage economies of scale. Amazon has expressed similar support. I don't think this is entirely altruistic.
    - jcims 7y ago
      It's not altruistic at all. In ten years Amazon (and likely WalMart) will be out of that labor market entirely and their competition will be left with the baggage.
      - blix 7y ago
        Assuming their competition will be left.
    - kuzimoto 7y ago
      Yep, larger companies are probably way better equipped to deal with raising the minimum wage. This will just hurt small/medium business.
IshKebab 7y ago
If their total pay isn't less that sounds pretty great!
- atypicality 7y ago
  Agreed. But that wasn't the end goal for the $15hour movement. The entire effort was touting 'living wage' so making the same take home check isn't helping anyone except for maybe less money spent on day care for their kids.
FabHK 7y ago
> weekly scheduled hours being cut back across the board. So you're saying the minimum wage laws are leading to more jobs? (If everyone works less, then more people must presumably be hired.)
- sobhaobnONJ 7y ago
  The people being hired are not the ones having their hours scaled back. If demand for labor rises at a natural average over time in an area then minimum wage could reduce scheduled hours while overall growth still creates job demand. It'd be more interesting to see the effects of minimum wage increases on the average yearly income for employees in the area for that reason.
born_a_skeptic 7y ago
When I see Axios articles I automatically think, "Well, it's probably pushing some sort of liberal agenda or policy." Just being completely honest.
- mistermann 7y ago
  I'm not familiar with Axios, but this article had a rather strong taste of propaganda to me. "The bottom line: Opposition to higher minimum wage laws is increasingly based in ideology and orthodoxy rather than real-world evidence, economists say." I also see little acknowledgement of the fact that this sort of analysis is extremely complex, that there are many variables in play, in ways that are not terribly obvious or easy to measure. Whenever I see people characterizing people who are increasingly suspicious of experts as ~stupid, I feel the urge to ask them if they believe this style of narratives-presented-as-facts plays no role in the phenomenon, and whether they've ever considered the idea prior to my question.
cosmodisk 7y ago
To me this is still positive. If one was making 40h x $10 and now does 31h x $13, it means the person has more time to invest in oneself,maybe do some community college course or whatever. I'd be more than happy if my CEO would give me Fridays off instead of giving a pay rise.
- atypicality 7y ago
  It might work out for you personally but it still doesn't address the issue of not making a living wage. If their weekly paycheck isn't any more than it was, they're still coming up short on their monthly expenses.
  - beatgammit 7y ago
    And if they're not making enough, they may need to work two jobs where they were working one, which results in less time (though maybe a little more money). There are a lot of variables here that need to be examined before we can decide whether it's largely a success.
  - cosmodisk 7y ago
    Yes,I'm not disputing that, however it then becomes possible to find a second job,or some side gig. Also, I'm not sure I follow the logic of reduced hours.For instance, a company employs 10 people full time.Then the state hikes up the min wage and suddenly thy all cost 10% more to the company.If the company reduces the headcount,it also reduces its productivity if nothing else changes, so it ends up costing even more to the company. Am I missing something?

dv_dt 7y ago

This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society. Without enforcing minimum wage, and perhaps least minimum full time to part time employment ratios, we face businesses competing on prices by undercutting labor instead of other avenues of improving operating efficiency.

darawk 7y ago
> This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society What does the minimum wage have to do with contribution to society? > Without enforcing minimum wage, and perhaps least minimum full time to part time employment ratios, we face businesses competing on prices by undercutting labor instead of other avenues of improving operating efficiency. Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. That might be a trade we're willing to make. There may be good reasons to make it, but it is not without cost.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  The markup on most products is such that US businesses could easily manufacture their products in the US at current minimum wages and still handily profit. They simply choose not to, because that means they have to pay their executives and owners less money and no executive wants to forego their country club membership, each of which is equal to the salary and benefits of 3 or more line workers, or their annual bonus, which is equal to the salary benefits of between 5 and 20 line workers. Or hell, the excess of what their salary is over the value they actually provide to the company (usually just a lit bit over an individual line workers' contribution).
  - RoyTyrell 7y ago
    > the excess of what their salary is over the value they actually provide to the company (usually just a lit bit over an individual line workers' contribution). Is that for every CEO at every corporation? How are you measuring and making that determination? Does that hold true for other executive positions?
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    > The markup on most products is such that US businesses could easily manufacture their products in the US at current minimum wages and still handily profit. What data are you basing this on? You're also ignoring the most important part - consumer choice. People buy cheap shit because it's cheaper. It's the foundation of Walmart. So let's say the companies here did manufacture here, but then a foreign competitor offers a significantly cheaper product - how do you reconcile that without going out of business?
    - didibus 7y ago
      I think that's precisely the issue. Economists thought that driving an open market would push up wages as efficiencies come back around, thus both driving for cheaper goods and higher wages. But they didn't anticipate exactly the effect of globalism and the exodus to China happening so quick. Foreign industries could be taxed to some level relative to what their workers are paid and their working conditions to even out the domestic companies disadvantages maybe. That's already happening to some extent. I don't know if that or fixed minimum wage is the solution by the way. But I'm saying clearly that's the problem. Companies don't all start with an equal footing, and that can put out of balance the free economy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/economists-globalization-trade-paul-krugman-china/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/22/economists-globalizatio... Edit: Eh, I forgot that you can't really have rational discussions on slightly political topics. If you think something I said isn't logical or true, please partake in the conversation.
      - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
        > both driving for cheaper goods and higher wages This actually works -- cheaper goods for developed countries and higher wages for China. On the balance this is a win economically. Environmentally it is the opposite -- better for developed countries and worse for manufacturing ones.
- Flozzin 7y ago
  If a business can only exist if you exploit your labor force, then maybe your business shouldn't exist. The portion of people that work jobs for fun or a little extra income are a minority. There are more examples of people working several minimum wage jobs just trying to survive. Maybe there is a compromise somewhere though. How about if you pay the minimum wage, then the owners/stake holders cannot make more than the lowest paid person. The head(s) of a company making good money(so I'm lumping some small businesses in here too), while saying that they just can't afford to pay their workers a decent wage, leave a bad taste in my mouth. Off topic, but I feel the same way about all the businesses saying we need cheap labor from Mexico or South America for the businesses to survive, since Americans won't do the job. It creates an underclass of people. If you can't find workers due to wage, and you cannot afford to pay more, the solution isn't to find a class of people that have it so bad, that living in poverty in America is a good option.
  - whatok 7y ago
    Businesses need cheap labor from outside of the US because everyone in x industry is using cheap labor that has an artificial ceiling due to years of unchecked illegal immigration. Competition in x industry is now centered around this new labor price point and in some cases is far below minimum wage. At that point, many drop out of the labor force instead of working a difficult and manual labor job that pays less than minimum wage. This is a failure of government to have a coherent and sensible immigration policy and an additional failure to deal with the spillover effects of not having one.
  - atypicality 7y ago
    > If a business can only exist if you exploit your labor force, then maybe your business shouldn't exist. Say bye-bye to your iPhone and all of your other beloved gadgets.
    - Flozzin 7y ago
      No reason to say goodbye to them. It would just mean that the price would have to increase, or the industries that produce them will have a smaller profit margin. Apple has $245 billion in cash right now.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. > The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. No. I'd say the bigger part of the reason was free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower wages, which encouraged job movement for little more than wage arbitrage reasons, minimum wage or no. The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. [1] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-household-income-per-capita https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-hous...
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    > Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No, they wouldn’t. Americans survived on wages lower than that in the past. They would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi —- unless you assume that Americans are somehow extremely inept compared to Bangladeshi.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      >> Americans would starve and die of exposure [in America] on [Bangladeshi] wages. > No, they wouldn’t.... [Americans] would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi I appreciate your honesty, but listen to what you're saying. No one "simply" accepts massive regressions in living standards across large swaths of the economy, and that's exactly what you'd need for Bangladeshi wages to be livable in the US. That kind of thing leads to revolutions, and rightly so.
    - asdff 7y ago
      Are you implying that the people currently starving and dieing of exposure living in bangladeshi-style slums right on the streets of San Fransisco is an acceptable outcome? We should be paying more people a wage that forces them to live like that? Or do we look at the growing inequality in this country and realize we can definitely afford to add a couple bucks to a poor guys hourly rate so he doesn't have to give 60% of his income to the parasite landlord every month.
- jonhendry18 7y ago
  "Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though" If they require lower wages in order to be sufficiently profitable, but those lower wages mean the employees have to rely on taxpayer funded safety nets to survive, maybe the business shouldn't exist? Because otherwise this is essentially a demand for taxpayers to subsidize the profits of a private enterprise. If Target and Walmart need employees on food stamps in order to make a profit, maybe we should just fully nationalize them instead of just subsidizing their profits.
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  > > This maybe leads to the question of why we should favor any business to continue operating in a space that may be a net negative contribution to our society > What does the minimum wage have to do with contribution to society? Seven years ago, the McDonalds corporation issued memos to employees instructing on how to file for SNAP (food stamps). Rather than paying employees what they need to survive, McDonalds was effectively shifting that cost onto taxpayers. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/instead-living-wage-mcdonalds-tells-workers-sign-food-stamps/309625/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/10/instead... A system where jobs provide money to consumers who participate in the economy, pay into social security, etc. is one that makes a "positive contribution" to societal balance sheet. One that hoards its income and doesn't pay into the system costs society money, hence "a net negative". "Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though." Right, but some businesses can pay minimum-wage-or-higher and be profitable, but the CEOs figured out that they can just keep that money for themselves and shift it onto the welfare system. This is why a lot of critics of modern capitalism claim that we already have socialism, we're just not doing it efficiently.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Same with illegal immigration. Some businesses won't be profitable or exist without them.
maxk42 7y ago
On the contrary, many of the lowest-paid jobs are lowest-paid because they're non-profits, volunteer organizations, or other organizations that provide some social benefit. Raising the minimum wage prevents these organizations from doing as much good for society.

Pigo 7y ago

I've read reports of Target, and similar companies, cutting back hours of many employees. I take such reports as anecdotal, but I didn't catch them talking about this in the article at all.

Cheyana 7y ago
I work part-time stocking shelves at a Walmart, and I can say from first-hand experience that while there is talk of cutting hours, the reality is that it won't happen at this time. Shelves don't stock themselves. Robots are a long way away, no matter what you hear, as the current process is inefficient enough to make it difficult for automation. Robots won't clean poop out of the urinals, or off the floors (yes, people do take a shit where they are not supposed to). I can also guarantee you that Walmart is not hurting by paying people 11 bucks an hour, and they still won't be hurting if they raise it by a couple of bucks. The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. Employees are necessary, and will be for a while.
- blix 7y ago
  > The CEO of Walmart even advised the feds that they should raise the minimum wage. High minimum wages favor larger entities than can leverage economies of scale. Amazon has expressed similar support. I don't think this is entirely altruistic.
  - jcims 7y ago
    It's not altruistic at all. In ten years Amazon (and likely WalMart) will be out of that labor market entirely and their competition will be left with the baggage.
    - blix 7y ago
      Assuming their competition will be left.
  - kuzimoto 7y ago
    Yep, larger companies are probably way better equipped to deal with raising the minimum wage. This will just hurt small/medium business.

IshKebab 7y ago

If their total pay isn't less that sounds pretty great!

atypicality 7y ago
Agreed. But that wasn't the end goal for the $15hour movement. The entire effort was touting 'living wage' so making the same take home check isn't helping anyone except for maybe less money spent on day care for their kids.

FabHK 7y ago

> weekly scheduled hours being cut back across the board. So you're saying the minimum wage laws are leading to more jobs? (If everyone works less, then more people must presumably be hired.)

sobhaobnONJ 7y ago
The people being hired are not the ones having their hours scaled back. If demand for labor rises at a natural average over time in an area then minimum wage could reduce scheduled hours while overall growth still creates job demand. It'd be more interesting to see the effects of minimum wage increases on the average yearly income for employees in the area for that reason.

born_a_skeptic 7y ago

When I see Axios articles I automatically think, "Well, it's probably pushing some sort of liberal agenda or policy." Just being completely honest.

mistermann 7y ago
I'm not familiar with Axios, but this article had a rather strong taste of propaganda to me. "The bottom line: Opposition to higher minimum wage laws is increasingly based in ideology and orthodoxy rather than real-world evidence, economists say." I also see little acknowledgement of the fact that this sort of analysis is extremely complex, that there are many variables in play, in ways that are not terribly obvious or easy to measure. Whenever I see people characterizing people who are increasingly suspicious of experts as ~stupid, I feel the urge to ask them if they believe this style of narratives-presented-as-facts plays no role in the phenomenon, and whether they've ever considered the idea prior to my question.

cosmodisk 7y ago

To me this is still positive. If one was making 40h x $10 and now does 31h x $13, it means the person has more time to invest in oneself,maybe do some community college course or whatever. I'd be more than happy if my CEO would give me Fridays off instead of giving a pay rise.

atypicality 7y ago
It might work out for you personally but it still doesn't address the issue of not making a living wage. If their weekly paycheck isn't any more than it was, they're still coming up short on their monthly expenses.
- beatgammit 7y ago
  And if they're not making enough, they may need to work two jobs where they were working one, which results in less time (though maybe a little more money). There are a lot of variables here that need to be examined before we can decide whether it's largely a success.
- cosmodisk 7y ago
  Yes,I'm not disputing that, however it then becomes possible to find a second job,or some side gig. Also, I'm not sure I follow the logic of reduced hours.For instance, a company employs 10 people full time.Then the state hikes up the min wage and suddenly thy all cost 10% more to the company.If the company reduces the headcount,it also reduces its productivity if nothing else changes, so it ends up costing even more to the company. Am I missing something?