Report: North Carolina’s Bathroom Bill To Cost The State $3.76 billion

It looks like bigotry can be a very expensive hobby. A new report finds that North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” will cost the state more than $3.76 billion over the next dozen years, according to the Associated Press.

The law, which has already cost North Carolina significant amounts of lost business, requires that people use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificates.

Several musicians have canceled of concerts scheduled in North Carolina and the NCAA avoided the state as a host site for its annual basketball tournament.

“Over the past year, North Carolina has suffered financial hits ranging from scuttled plans for a PayPal facility that would have added an estimated $2.66 billion to the state’s economy to a canceled Ringo Starr concert that deprived a town’s amphitheater of about $33,000 in revenue,” the AP noted.

The Associated Press said that their analysis is likely underestimating the actual cost of the law.

The AP analysis “compiled through interviews and public records requests — represents the largest reckoning yet of how much the law, passed one year ago, could cost the state. The law excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections, and requires transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates in many public buildings.”