| |
Every year
about this time, both children and accountants study Santa Claus and ask: How
does he do it?
The kids, of course, wonder how their red-suited
benefactor gets down all those chimneys in just one night. But the accountants
have another question: Exactly how does the Santa business model work?
Sure the old guy picks up a handsome paycheck for
all those shopping mall hours he puts in. And he has a few other
sources of income. But then he gives away all those presents. As
any parent can tell you, that's not cheap.
So
Bankrate.com, always fiscally responsible, decided to take a look at Santa's balance
sheet and see how this all works out financially. Income
Since the 1950s, Santa Claus has found gainful employment at shopping
malls across the United States, grinning for the cameras while hugging everything
from screaming tots to drooling dogs. But the photography companies pocket the
profit from those pricy picture packages -- Santa is actually an hourly employee
at the approximately 1,000 enclosed malls in this country.
According to the International Council of Shopping
Centers, Santa reported for work at a majority of these locations
in 2007 on Nov. 17, which gives him 37 days of employment. Because
97.1 percent of the malls extend their shopping hours during December,
it's a safe bet he's on duty 10 hours per day, even with two meal
breaks, for a time card of 370,000 hours. Then, of course, he has
his traditional haunts: Macy's on 34th Street in New York, and rival
Bloomingdale's uptown. Not to be outdone, South Street Seaport has
also jumped into the fray demanding his presence, so add another
546 hours.
That means Santa would bank $2,167,694.10
at the federal minimum wage of $5.85. However, a few years ago, this savvy dude
capitalized on years of experience (not to mention a real beard) and negotiated
an average salary of $8,000 a year with the photography vendors, so in reality
he's bringing home $8,000,000.
And because Christmas boils down to seasonal work,
he has begun appearing at award nights, conventions, birthday parties
and casinos throughout the year, commanding hefty fees between $1,200
and $10,000 per job. A couple of these gigs a month would pull in
roughly $224,000 in extra cash throughout the year.
Unfortunately, he's missing
out on the real cash cow. According to Steve Weinberg, a shareholder with Greenberg
Traurig law firm in Los Angeles, the holiday icon has no claim to any royalty
income. For starters, his history is a bit too murky for a lawyer to establish
intellectual property rights to the roly-poly, eye-twinkling, gift-giving image.
Over the centuries, Santa's identity has merged with Nicholas the Gift Giver,
St. Nicholas sans the red costume in Washington Irving's tales and Kris Kringle. Haddon
Sundblom created the current character known as Santa Claus as an advertising
campaign for Coca-Cola in the 1930s, so the soft drink company actually holds
a stronger case for the money than Mr. Claus himself.
|
