Oh, the other part of the story... so this is back in the mid to late 90s. They're ERP consultants. These guys at the time were getting billed out at ~$400 a piece to the client even if they were raw. The cut of the firm they were working for was probably in the $270 range.

Turns out the technical consultants were making $15 an hour with no per diem or benefits and their functional people were getting about $22. The company I worked for got blamed for the living conditions of the employees... but we weren't in charge of their living conditions in the first place... that was all handled by their direct employer.