> Unfortunately in our society it always comes down to an issue of cost

A ugly way to say that our society has limited resources.

Working hours especially are a zero-sum choice.

We require some way to choose between different usages of people's time. All choices are suboptimal. Our societies have slowly developed something that mostly works.

Money as a topic is distracting: instead think about how we allocate the lives (time) of people: especially when trading one person's life/work against another's rights.