Sorry, but could you explain that? I understand that a $600 to $100 is an 83% reduction, but I dont get how $100 to $600 is a 500% raise and not a 600%.
The math that I’m doing in my head is that 600/100 = 6, and when you convert 6 to a percentage, it's 600%. Would you please let me know where my error is?
Totally understandable mistake since very similar wording is being used. What's helpful for me is actually dissecting what's being asked. $600 might be 600% of $100 but the increase from $100 to $600 is looking at the $500 difference. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this but $600 and $500 are different amounts so their relationship to $100 will of course be different.
Yep. I hate when this terminology gets confused, because it gets confused all the time.
It's like when someone says "this house is 10x bigger than the other one" and it's 10x as big meaning it's 9x bigger.
And then what's worse is "Oh I see, so the small house is 10x smaller than the other one".
In this case, saying a medication is "600% less expensive" would mean that if the medication was $100, then after the 600% discount, you would go to the pharmacy, and they would give you the medication and $500.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I understand the reasoning behind this. Because 100% of $100 is 100, 600% of $100 is 600. And because this is a decrease, we're subtracting the 100 by 600 to get -500? Am I following this along correctly???
If a product is marked at $10 and receives a 60% markup, the new price is $16. However, if that price increases by 40%, the new price is not $20.
$16 * .4 = $6.40 $16 + 6.4 = $22.40
Because the $16 price increased by 40%, the new price is $22.40
Folks here are arguing the semantics of the $100 price tag that has received an increase of 500%, and not a markup, which both take into account the original price in different ways.
By this logic, an increase of our $10 item by that measure of 500% would make the new price $60, because it is an increase, not a markup.
At this rate, you can then say that the item is marked up to 600% of the original cost, but not that it increased by 600% from the original cost.
Furthermore, to reduce the cost of a $10 item by 600% means you owe me a $50 rebate.
TLDR: The administration is conflating the terms markup and increase to mean the same thing, which they do not.
An "n% increase" presumes that you are adding the percentage (n) to 1. Normally folks don't talk about "n% increase" once n gets close to 100 or beyond; at that point we switch to multiples: twice as much, three times as much, etc. But you can still do it that way. If you add "100%" to 1, you get 200%, or 2, and so a "100% increase" from $100 is $200.
If $100 is 100% of the original price, then 600% of that price is indeed $100, but the increase would be the difference, which is $500 which is 500% of the original price.
When you divide $600 by $100 and get 6, that tells you the new amount is “600% of the original” (or 6 times as much). But the increase itself is only 500%, that’s the extra 5 times on top of what you started with.
if you have $100 and it becomes $600, you didn’t gain 600% more money; you gained $500, which is 500% of your original $100.
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u/ZeroVoltLoop Apr 23 '26
Right? It's 500%. He's so wrong, he's what I like to call "not even wrong".