Economic Concepts: Marginal
Utility, Benefit, & Opportunity Cost
Copyright, LLC, 2016 DEFINITION of 'Marginal Utility' Marginal utility is an important economic concept because economists use it to determine how much of an item a consumer will buy. Positive marginal utility is when the consumption of an additional item increases the total utility. Negative marginal utility is when the consumption of an additional item decreases the total utility. BREAKING DOWN 'Marginal Utility' For example, if you were really thirsty you'd get a certain amount of satisfaction from a glass of water. This satisfaction would probably decrease with the second glass, and then decrease even more with the third glass. The additional amount of satisfaction that comes with each additional glass of water is marginal utility. Definition of 'Marginal Benefit' The additional satisfaction or utility that a person receives from consuming an additional unit of a good or service. A person's marginal benefit is the maximum amount they are willing to pay to consume that additional unit of a good or service. In a normal situation, the marginal benefit will decrease as consumption increases. BREAKING DOWN 'Marginal Benefit’ For example, assume there is a consumer wishing to purchase an additional burger. If this consumer is willing to pay $10 for that additional burger, then the marginal benefit of consuming that burger is $10. The more burgers the consumer has, the less he or she will want to pay for the next one. This is because marginal benefit decreases as the quantity consumed increases (aka: the law of diminishing returns). DEFINITION of 'Opportunity Cost' The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action. BREAKING DOWN 'Opportunity Cost' The opportunity cost of going to college is the money you would have earned if you worked instead. On the one hand, you lose four years of salary while getting your degree; on the other hand, you hope to earn more during your career, thanks to your education, to offset the lost wages. Here's another example: if a gardener decides to grow carrots, his or her opportunity cost is the alternative crop that might have been grown instead (potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, etc.). In both cases, a choice between two options must be made. It would be an easy decision if you knew the end outcome; however, the risk that you could achieve greater "benefits" (be they monetary or otherwise) with another option is the opportunity cost. 4 FEBRUARY 8, 2011, 12:55 PM
The Marginal Cost of
Children
By LISA BELKIN
Illustration by Barry Falls
Laura Vanderkam’s most recent book,“168 Hours,” was about
how to fit everything into your day.
Her next book, which she is researching now, will be about how
to pay for everything in your life.
One of those “things” is children, and she has asked me to
bounce a question off Motherlode readers — a question that is
professional, yes, but also personal. She and her husband have
two sons, Jasper, 3, and Sam, 15 months. She is thinking of
having a third, and has been pondering whether the concept of
“economies of scale” applies to families.
Is the third child somehow more “economical” than the first or second? “With any big project, there
are start-up costs,” she says. “But does the marginal cost of kids fall?”
There are numbers that suggest so. Parsing Department of Agriculture data (click here and see Page 7)
she finds that “if you have two kids, ages 13 and 16, your costs as a middle-income family will be
$23,000 per year” to feed, house and clothe them. “However, if you have three kids, ages 11, 13, and
16, your costs will be $25,880 — in other words, the third kid is costing just $2,880 extra.”
And very big families, she says, believe this is true. “All of them told me that the marginal cost of
children falls precipitously,” she said. “I’m sure this is partly true, though it also depends on what you
plan to do for the kids — most of them don’t plan to pay for college. They also tend not to buy plane
tickets for 16 people.”
Her conclusions so far:
“I think two things happen. One is that some costs get amortized over additional children (cribs,
clothes, and food gets bought in bulk). Second, you change your expectations. You might bring two
kids to Europe. You’d bring four kids to your nearest state or national park.”
This is also the conclusion of readers who have shared their experience of large families with me in emails in recent months. One, the mother of four, all under the age of 6, writes that there is money to
be saved
when it comes to necessities (groceries, clothes, diapers, shoes, toys, furniture, even rent or mortgage
— you pretty much need an additional bedroom for one child, but for two children you can just buy
another bed or do bunk beds). It’s not so true when it comes to luxuries. Travel, of course, is difficult
with a large family (probably impossible with a very large number of children, unless you’re insanely
wealthy); groceries are cheaper in bulk, but eating out isn’t; and I don’t picture us ever flying
anywhere or going on a cruise with the whole family. Private school and/or college tuition is also
certainly in that category, unless you have an arrangement that allows you to pay less when a sibling
5 already attends at full price. Currently, my primary financial frustration with having four children is
not being able to let them try a lot of classes and activities. I think many middle-class families with
one or two children take it for granted that their children can each participate in at least one
extracurricular activity per semester or year, if they so desire. The only thing we’ve done this year is
tae kwon do, and we had to switch off — my older daughter took last semester, and my older son will
take classes this semester. We did soccer last year but can’t afford to continue this year. One daughter
would like to try some kind of dance, but we can’t afford it as long as her brother is taking martial
arts. We’d like them to start on piano at some point so they can at least read music, but that’s not in
the budget either. And that’s not even counting fees for one-time programs at museums, zoos, parks
or libraries. We usually can’t take them to plays or concerts. Obviously no summer camps. I realize
that none of those things are necessary for a fulfilling childhood or successful adult life, and I don’t
want to overschedule them, but I do feel frustrated that I can’t give them a chance to try things out
and see where their talents might lie.
Or, as another reader wrote:
I “only” have two children, but I grew up as the eldest of six and my brother has seven. I think the
biggest reason that the marginal cost of children falls precipitously is that after two kids, you realize
that kids don’t “need” all that stuff that you bought for the first and second and that it certainly
doesn’t have to be new! You realize that an Exersaucer for $5 from a garage sale is just as good as the
$100 new one. You also have lots of older siblings who look after, care for and help with the younger
ones. My parents never paid for a baby sitter after I was 10. Parents with more children also have to
be more organized: chores are assigned and people become more accountable, especially if you’re
sharing a small space. You buy in bulk (“cheaper by the dozen”). You embrace hand-me-downs. We
grew up in a pretty financially challenged family, but we did tons of activities/sports through the local
parks programs (mostly free). Our big splurge was the family membership to the Y.M.C.A. (which in
those days did not charge “extra” for extra children, so it was a real bargain) and we went there nearly
every day. Traveling was by car only; I was never on a plane until college. Vacations were road trips
and destinations were campsites — we had a tent that slept 12. We never bought a new car. We drank
powdered milk and bought potatoes by the 25-pound bag. There was no such thing as “saving for
college,” although we all had high aspirations and took full advantage of financial aid, loans, etc. That
was considered our responsibility, not our parents’. Private school was never an option, but we lived
in New York City and took advantage of Hunter, Stuyvesant and Bronx Science (private school
education, public school price).
Do you have more than two or three children? How do you amortize the cost?
Did you decide not to have any more children because you don’t want to “change your expectations”?
Is it somehow “cheating” older children by diluting funds for activities and education? Or somehow
“cheating” younger ones with a life where nothing they own is new and nothing they do is first? Or is
that how the most valuable life lessons are learned?
6 What Are Incentives? A dictionary definition of an incentive is ‘something that motivates you to do something’. In
economics one can say that an incentive is a benefit, reward, or cost that motivates an
economic action. Human beings do things deliberately and purposefully, and, naturally,
people expect to benefit from their own decisions and actions. Before someone decides to produce something and
sell it to people, they should have taken time to think and decide that doing this will help them earn something.
Likewise, before a consumer buys anything, they know (or at least they think) that they are going to benefit from the
product. In strict sense, it is more than just the usual concepts or trade and economics, it is about human nature. No
one does something for no reason. Not when they have to spend time and resources in doing so.
The study of incentive structures is central to the study of all economic activities.
Incentives can be to classified according to the different ways in which they motivate agents to take a particular course of
action:
Class
Monetary
incentives
Moral
/Social
Definition
are said to exist where an agent can expect some form of material reward – especially
money – in exchange for acting in a particular way.
are said to exist where a particular choice is widely regarded as the right thing to do, or as particularly
admirable, or where the failure to act in a certain way is condemned as indecent. A person acting on a moral
incentive can expect a sense of self-esteem, and approval or even admiration
from his community; a person acting against a moral incentive can expect a
sense of guilt, and condemnation or even ostracism from the community.
incentives
Coercive
incentives
are said to exist where a person can expect that the failure to act in a particular way will result in physical
force being used against them (or their loved ones) by others in the community – for
example, by inflicting pain in punishment, or by imprisonment, or by confiscating or
destroying their possessions. Natural
Incentives
such as curiosity, mental or physical exercise, admiration, fear, anger, pain, joy, or the
pursuit of truth, or the control over things in the world or people or oneself. 7 Economics
The study of economics in modern societies is mostly concerned with financial or monetary incentives rather
than moral or coercive incentives – not because the latter two are unimportant, but rather because monetary incentives
are the main form of incentives employed in the world of business, whereas moral and coercive incentives are more
characteristic of the sorts of decisions studied by political science and sociology.
[2]
A strong incentive is one that accomplishes the stated goal. If the goal is to maximize production, then a strong incentive
[3]
will be one that encourages workers to produce goods at full capacity. A weak incentive is any incentive below this level.
Incentives help people to make the right decision, or the one someone would like them to make. To accomplish things you
want done in economics you must give the consumer or the producer incentives, without them they would have no reason
to do what you ask.
Problems
Incentive structures, however, are notoriously more tricky than they might appear to people who set them up. Human
beings are both finite and creative; that means that the people offering incentives are often unable to predict all of the
ways that people will respond to them. Thus, imperfect knowledge and unintended consequences can often make
incentives much more complex than the people offering them originally expected, and can lead either to
unexpected windfalls or to disasters produced by unintentionally perverse
incentives.
Examples would be ESAT offering a monetary incentive (money) for students
to get good grades, which would increase the incentive for some students to
cheat.
8 Cash for Grades? Privately funded programs try paying students to boost achievement.
By Mary Ellen Flannery
Do you really get what you pay for? At the shoe store, yes. But when it comes to paying kids for grades, probably not
— especially if what you’re trying to buy is a life-long love of learning.
Long a tactic of fed-up parents, the idea of paying for good grades has
migrated from the family room to the school house. In states ranging from
Texas to Massachusetts, a growing number of students are pocketing cold
cash for good grades or test scores on Advanced Placement and SAT exams,
typically through privately funded programs.
In Houston, a three-month-old, privately funded $1.5 million program will
reward fifth-graders — and, notably, their parents — when they master basic
math standards. Each family stands to earn $1,050, not a small amount,
especially in a community where 80 percent of kids qualify for free or
reduced-price lunch. Meanwhile, down the road, more than 10,000 Dallas
students have earned up to $400 for taking and passing Advanced Placement
tests in a newly expanded $1.5 million program funded by a private
foundation.
It makes sense to some. Says Stacey Priestley, a northern Indiana teacher:
“My son gets money for grades. We tell him going to school and getting good
grades is his job. If he does his job well, he gets paid just like a job in the real world.”
But most Americans, and many educators, still feel uncomfortable with the idea. According to the most recent
national Phi Delta Kappa poll, one out of four Americans say students should be paid for their grades. There’s
something about the practice that just feels… wrong. Isn’t there greater value in reading a good book than a
certificate for cheese pizza? Isn’t education cheapened when its sum value is a remote chance at a limo ride? (Yes,
some schools offer limo rides as incentives, as shown below in the video excerpt from the Freakonomics movie.)
Many teachers also say paying students for grades leads to practical problems in their classrooms, including
pressure to inflate grades and conflict with students and parents. In Kentucky, where the Kentucky Educational
Excellence Scholarship provides up to $500 in state lottery revenues to kids with all A’s, parents “rip teachers” when
their kid gets a C, says teacher Chris Spoonamore.
But the bigger question is: Does it even work?
While proponents hope those millions will help close achievement gaps, especially in poor communities where a
dollar really makes a difference, research shows that the money might better be spent on the kinds of things we
know can help improve student achievement, like teacher training and smaller class sizes.
Rewarding Whom?
Barbara Marinak, an assistant professor of education at Penn State University, says the research on monetary
rewards is quite clear: They don’t work. “Any type of ‘extrinsic’ reward, by and large, undermines motivation,” she
told National Public Radio last year.
Similarly, Alfie Kohn, the author of Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s and
Other Bribes, says the bigger the reward, the bigger the damage done.
Especially when it comes to creative work, research shows that money doesn’t work — in fact, it probably deters
achievement in the long run. Moreover, any kind of extrinsic reward can be dangerous. In a well-known Stanford
University experiment, more than three decades old, researchers divided preschoolers into two groups: one that
9 would get gold stars for their drawings and one that would not. Both drew enthusiastically, but when asked to draw
again — without a reward — the gold-star group cut its drawing time in half. It appeared as if they’d lost enthusiasm
for the task when it didn’t come with a reward.
“What we really want is for people to value the activity of learning,” University of Rochester professor Edward Deci
told TIME magazine. And, other research, with young students and teenagers, show that they all perform better and
work harder when the task is interesting, fun to do, and relevant to their lives.
“There has to be intrinsic motivation,” says Kentucky’s Spoonamore.
More recently, Harvard economist Roland Fryer, Jr., ran a $6.3 million experiment involving 18,000 students in
Washington, D.C., New York, Dallas and Chicago. In each city, the incentives looked different — with varying results.
In New York, where kids were paid for good test scores, and in Chicago, where they were paid for good grades,
achievement didn’t budge.
But in D.C., where kids were rewarded for a variety of tasks, including earning good grades, attending class and
completing homework, some kids did marginally better on reading comprehension tests. And in Dallas, where kids
got $2 for each book they read — more books were read, and reading comprehension scores significantly improved.
The difference? Simply playing kids for good grades or test scores doesn’t actually give them any more skills, Fryer
theorized. The system needs to be more complicated — and more specific to the needs of children — to be effective.
Similarly, a growing program of rewarding kids for passing Advanced Placement tests also has a teacher training
component. The National Math and Science initiative, which has poured millions of dollars into seven states,
rewards both students and teachers up to $100 for each passing score, and it provides professional development for
teachers. In Mashpee, Massachusetts, the local union agreed that its members should accept the financial incentive
— and that money is collected in an account for teacher supplies and additional training.
A recent study showed that AP enrollment in those places is up, but it’s also increasing in many schools and districts
without rewards as well. Said one Mashpee student to The Cape Cod Times, “"I think I'd just try my best
anyway…(The class) is kind of a challenge, but it's a fun class because (our teacher) makes it fun.”
10 D.C. students respond to cash awards, Harvard study shows
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Paying District middle-schoolers as much as
$100 a month for good grades, behavior and
attendance led to higher reading test scores for
Hispanics, boys and students with behavior
problems, according to the early results of
a Harvard University study.
The overall effect of the cash awards on the 3,000 students in 15 D.C. middle schools was less significant,
however, and the study's author acknowledged that the relatively small sample makes it difficult to draw
strong conclusions about the initiative.
The initial results of the study, released Thursday, are unlikely to quell the long debate about financial
rewards for students. Critics deride the idea as tantamount to bribery and point to a body of research that
suggests such incentives can erode children's intrinsic motivation. The study's author, Harvard economist
Roland Fryer, said there was no evidence that the money led to the waning of student motivation or interest
in learning. And although the program is "no silver bullet," the results justify continued study, he said.
"We have a set of promising results, and we need more," Fryer said.
But Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said Friday that she was pleased with the results, which cover the 200809 academic year. She added that she was "shocked" at the gains on DC-CAS standardized tests achieved
by Hispanics and other subgroups, which were the equivalent of as much as five additional months of
school.
Compared with the cost of other kinds of supports for at-risk children, such as smaller class sizes and Head
Start, she said, the outcomes were impressive. The total District outlay for the Capital Gains program that
year came to $1.2 million, including average payments of about $530 to the students who participated. "I definitely think it was a good investment for us," said Rhee, who cited the importance of finding ways to
keep students engaged in their middle-school years.
The future of the program, which is continuing at least through this school year, is uncertain. Rhee said she
expects to get a "quick and dirty" assessment of this year's student achievement soon. If the second-year
results are similar, she said, she will push to continue the initiative despite the system's tight budget.
The Capital Gains program is part of a four-city, $6.3 million study led by Fryer to assess whether financial
incentives can spur academic achievement in urban classrooms. Second-graders in Dallas received $2 for
reading a book. Chicago high school freshmen were paid every five weeks for earning good grades in five
core courses. Fourth- and seventh-graders in New York City earned cash payments for performance on
tests.
11 The results, first reported in Time magazine, are mixed. Students who were asked to perform tangible tasks,
such as the Dallas second-graders, showed significant test score growth. In Chicago and New York, where
student payments depended solely on test scores, there was little increase.
"To my surprise, incentive programs that rewarded process seemed to be more effective than those that
rewarded outcomes," said Fryer, who leads the Educational Innovation Laboratory at Harvard.
The District experiment was a hybrid, with schools required to use attendance and behavior as criteria but
free to select other measures such as grades, homework completion and adherence to uniform policy. Cash
payments were based on a $2-per-point system, with one point awarded daily for each goal met. The
average two-week take for a student was about $40. Among the schools participating are Hart, Kelly
Miller, Shaw at Garnet-Patterson, Stuart-Hobson, Brightwood, Burroughs and Emery.
Fryer said the District results were striking for several reasons. Girls, who usually respond more readily to
educational interventions, were outperformed by boys. And although the sample group was small -- just
more than 500 students -- Hispanics showed growth. The group that achieved the biggest test score gains
was students who had been suspended the previous school year (2007-08) for disciplinary reasons.
As to why these student groups performed the way they did, Fryer can't say.
"What experiments are good at doing is cleanly estimating the causal impact of programs on student
achievement," he said. "Experiments don't give clean reasons why."
Overall, the awards showed only a "marginally significant" effect on standardized reading test scores.
Effects on math test scores were not statistically significant.
Fryer's study outlined several issues with the design of the District experiment that qualify some of the
results. The relatively small size of the D.C. system -- with just 35 schools that have middle school grades - limits the statistical reliability of the data. The New York study, by comparison, involved 63 schools.
He also said the "balance" of the sample was not ideal. Seventeen schools were originally selected to
receive the cash incentives, and 17 were designated to serve as an experimental control group.
But two of the seventeen "incentive" schools dropped out. Neither Fryer nor District officials could name
the schools Friday or explain why they chose not to participate. The remaining schools that received cash
awards were larger, more predominantly African American and less likely to be pre-K through eighth
grade.
Some District parents remain skeptical of Capital Gains' overall value.
"I was not a fan to begin with, and nothing has really convinced me that it is worth the money," said Mary
Melchior, a parent activist at Langdon, a pre-K-8 school in Northeast. Melchior, the mother of second
grade triplets, said she would pull them out of the school if the program is still in place when they enter
middle school.
"We want to inspire our kids to enjoy reading," she said, "and to love knowledge for itself."
12 Google Employees Reveal Their
Favorite Perks About Working For
The Company
By Jillian D'Onfro and Kevin Smith
Jul. 1, 2014
Google jobs are some of the most sought-after
positions in the entire tech industry.
Besides truly gorgeous office spaces, Google provides its workers with a lot of perks, and some former
Googlers, and a few who are still with the company, listed their favorite benefits on Quora.
The free gourmet food and snacks are never-ending.
Googlers employees are extremely well fed, getting healthy and varied breakfast, lunch, and even
dinner if they stay late — for free. There are also coffee
and juice bars scattered throughout the campuses.
The consensus is that the convenience of having food
provided cannot be overstated.
One Googler commented that they loved the food perk
because, "it saves me time and money, and helps me
build relationships with my colleagues."
Googlers at the Mountain View
campus get a free ride to and
from work.
Even though Google's buses have
become controversial with San Francisco
residents as of late, they're still an amazing
resource for its employees.
All the buses are equipped with Wi-Fi, so not
only can employees live anywhere in San
Francisco without needing a car to get to
work, but they can relax, have fun, or get
work done on the way there.
Dogs are welcome!
Googlers are free to bring their pets to work. A former Googler describes why bringing his dog to work
is so great. He says that it not only helped keep his energy up, but brought spontaneous joy to his
coworkers and helped him meet people he probably would not have otherwise.
13 Here's his whole answer:
Though managing a dog between meetings can sometimes be challenging, having her with me meant
that every few hours I needed to get outside and take a
break which helped me manage my energy. In addition my
dog brought a lot of spontaneous joy to my colleagues who
sometimes sought her out when needing a break from an
arduous task. For everyone looking out your work window
to see dogs chasing each other or running after tennis balls
really warms the spirit. Eventually my dog became far
better known than I was and she oddly enough ended up
introducing me to a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise have
met. The benefits of allowing dogs in the office far outweigh
the costs, and the increase in job satisfaction for those with
dogs or who like dogs far outweighs the mild annoyance of
those miserable individuals who somehow make it through
life unaffected by wagging tails and contagious enthusiasm. If there is an easy Google benefit almost
anyone can replicate, bringing dogs into the workplace is it.
Google cares about your general well-being.
Employees can give each other "massage credits" for a job well done on projects. The massage credits
can be redeemed for a free one-hour massage on campus.
Besides massages, one engineer describes what it was like when he got an injury while working at
Google:
I got an injury while I was in the U.S. and needed to have three surgeries and follow-ups that in total
made me not being able to work for five months. Starting with my manager and colleague, the entire
company was really sympathetic with what happened to me and encouraged me to concentrate on
getting healthier. When I came back an extended time I was definitely feeling stressed, but my
manager set her expectations fairly, which enabled me to ramp up very quickly and continue where I
left off.
New parents get the break they
deserve.
It's typical for mothers to get time off from work for up to
six weeks after having a child, but at Google it's another
story.
New dads receive six weeks of paid leave, and moms can
take 18 weeks, and employees' stock continues to vest
(and they continue to receive bonuses) while they are on
leave.
"The Goog even gives us a bonus, called 'baby bonding
bucks' shortly after our baby is born to help with expenses
like diapers, takeout, and formula during our leave," one employee writes.
When parents return to work, there are free on-site daycares for children.
14 Oregon bottle deposit will go
from a nickel to a dime next
year
August 02, 2016
By Talia Richman Oregon's bottle deposit will soon go from a nickel to a dime, an effort to raise redemption rates that
have sagged in recent years.
In 1971, Oregon passed a first-of-its-kind "bottle bill," which added 5 cents to the price of canned
and bottled beer and soft drinks. To get the money back, a person had to return the bottle or can
instead of throwing it away.
A nickel carried real spending power back then. For the first 15 years, return rates exceeded 90
percent, while the amount of litter along Oregon's roads and in its landfills declined. But by 2009,
only about three-quarters of bottles were redeemed, according to the Oregon Department of
Environmental Quality.
To combat that problem, the 2011 Legislature
decreed that if the redemption rate were to
fall below 80 percent for two consecutive
years, the 5 cent bottle deposit would be
doubled.
In July, the Oregon Liquor Control
Commission announced the latest numbers:
about 68 percent for 2014 and 64 percent in
2015. The provision will kick in April 1, 2017.
"We're going to take a hit as an industry,"
said Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest
Grocery Association. "A lot of containers out
there that are worth a nickel will suddenly be worth a dime the next day."
That's what happened in 2009, when the bill expanded to include bottled water. That change
"didn't kill us, but it was a cost to the system," Gilliam said.
Oregon is one of 10 states with a bottle bill. Most have stuck with 5 cents, though Maine and
Vermont offer 15 cents for liquor bottles, and California gives 10 cents back for bottles larger than
24 ounces.
Only Michigan has a 10 cent deposit, and its return rates consistently hover above 90 percent.
Oregon will be the first state to increase an established deposit amount, said Cherilyn Bertges, an
Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative spokeswoman. The cooperative operates 16 BottleDrop
redemption centers across the state and is planning to add four more before April.
15 "We do expect there to be an increase in return rates, but how much that will be is a good
question," Bertges said. "We don't have an exact example, so it's pretty much anybody's guess
what will happen."
Doubling the deposit is going to increase the number of people who go through neighborhoods to
collect others' cans, Gilliam said, and it also may exacerbate fraud.
Already, he said, people from Washington and Idaho - states without bottle bills - cross the border
to redeem cans they didn't pay a deposit on.
"There's concern that would go up as well," he said. "There's always someone angling to make a
buck."
Oregon's historic bottle deposit system will soon see additional change. In 2018, it will be
expanded to include "all beverage containers except distilled liquor, wine, dairy or plant-based
milk, and infant formula."
That means people will be able to get 10 cents back for beverages including tea, coffee, hard
cider, kombucha and coconut water.
Though the cost of living has changed over the last 45 years, the bottle deposit hasn't.
If it had, Bertges said, the deposit would be now be up to about 30 cents.
Robert Gimarelli saves his own bottles and comes almost daily to redeem them. He also picks
them up at bus stops, on the street and at his apartment building.
"I don't want to see them thrown away - they're money, they're gold," said Gimarelli, 29. "It's a
good day, April 1. It's more money in your pocket."
But Deb Stone, 61, said the increase will make her life harder. She "dumpster dives," and often
spends three to four hours going through each of the eight trash rooms in her building.
"I'm not excited because I don't see the cans being there anymore," Stone said. "People will save
them and take them in themselves now that they're worth more. Sometimes I come here with $15
worth of bottles but I don't think that'll be available anymore."
16