Here's How Much Santa Claus Should Be Paid For His Work This Year
Or at least that's what we can gather from insurance website Insure.com, which used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to calculate what Santa would take home in 2014 based on the various jobs he does throughout the year.
According to Insure.com, Santa would make $139,924 this year, an enviable salary for most of the world's citizens but perhaps a little low for manufacturing and delivering billions of presents to children all over the world.
The "Santa Index" claims Santa would make most of his money, about $116,742 this year, from working eight hours a day as an industrial engineer at his workshop. The BLS estimates the median wage for an industrial engineer to be $40.09 an hour.
Other jobs Insure.com factored into its calculation were labor relations specialist (for negotiating with elves), customer service representative (for taking wishes from children at malls), and shipping clerk (for delivering gifts).
In a survey commissioned by Insure.com, people were split over whether $116,742 would be adequate compensation for Jolly Old Saint Nick.
Of the 1,000 adults polled, 29% said Santa should earn $1.8 billion, or a dollar for every child under the age of 15 in the world. Another 9% said Santa should make less than that, but upwards of $200,000. But 17% said his salary should be under $100,000 and a whopping 29% said he should work for free.
This last group will most assuredly have coal coming to them this Christmas.