WASHINGTON — As the kids are opening presents from Santa, did you ever think about all the jobs St. Nick has to do to pull off his yearly trip?
The jolly old elf wears a lot of hats — and he could potentially rake in a lot of dough, according to annual Insure.com Santa Index, which calculates Santa’s salary.
He’s an industrial engineer and labor relations specialist, running that workshop. He works as a private investigator and bookkeeper, keeping tabs on who’s naughty and nice. He has to be a rancher to take care of the reindeer. He’s a customer service representative who talks to kids in the mall. And when it comes time to get down to work on the annual trek, he’s a pilot, chimney sweep and agricultural inspector, tasting all those cookies.
If you tallied up all his hours of work in all those fields, the index says he should be making almost $140,000 for all his time. That’s about $2,000 more than last year.
But they also did a survey on what people think Santa should make.
The results are divided. About a third think he should be a billionaire making about a dollar for every kid in the world (approximately 1.8 billion), but another third said he shouldn’t get paid.
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