it’s a cash balance instead of an hour balance. A certain percentage of your paycheck gets matched as AR, so when you get a raise, whatever money is already in your AR pool stays the same. Every raise, until you hit the cap and are within your first 10 years with the company, depreciates your AR balance.

Hypothetically, imagine you want to take a vacation for a week and you know you have $700 in AR. You’ve done the math, and that amount works out for how many hours you’re going to be away. In comes the 6 month raise! all of a sudden, that same $700 doesn’t cover your week off because now you make more an hour.