“I mean, generally speaking, wages have stabilized throughout the stores and the DCs and any increases we're seeing are really driven by minimum wages.”

In context

“ncentive comp investment this summer. How should we be thinking about the growth of that line item going forward? And in particular, can you elaborate on what you're seeing in terms of store wage rate inflation? Adam Orvos: Brooke, this is Adam. Yes. So store wage, as we said in the comments, they'll continue to put pressure on us. That's largely driven by minimum wage changes that we need to take in the marketplace. But I would say overall on SG&A, the biggest moving part this year has been incentive comp, right? So as you'll remember, very little incentive comp last year. And not only did we have to reset the bar this year but we're obviously outperforming our financial plan. So that's the biggest kind of volatility in the SG&A line. Michael Hartshorn: I'll just add on the wage front. I mean, generally speaking, wages have stabilized throughout the stores and the DCs and any increases we're seeing are really driven by minimum wages. On SG&A going forward, I think we'd expect that we'd be able to lever between the 3 and 4 comp as we have in the past. Operator: And the next question comes from the line of Michael Binetti with Evercore. Michael Binetti: Congrats on a great quarter. I just want to ask, do you think -- Michael or Adam, jump ball, what do you think about -- what do you look at today to inform us whether there's some opportunity in the pure merch margin for next year, puts and takes that you're thinking about? Barbara, you mentioned seeing some -- you mentioned some great comments on some of the brand availability. Is there an opportunity for AUR as you guys get better access to quality brands? And then I noticed you opened a bunch of the handful stores in Michigan a few months ago and 1 single store in”