How Much Should Santa’s Salary Be?

Malika Dudley’s son Jackson Judd was not impressed with the Queen Kaahumanu Center Santa on Maui
PHOTO COURTESY MALIKA DUDLEY

I can’t help but wonder how Santa Claus would feel about the 2014 Santa Index. How can you possibly put a dollar figure on the work Santa does every holiday season? Well, Insure.com did. After crunching the numbers, its statistician decided that Jolly Ol’ St. Nick should earn a $140,000 annual salary.

OK, so Scrooge might say, “Bah humbug, 140 grand for what? For one day of work a year to a guy who delegates most of the real work to his elves?”

But don’t forget he makes a list and checks it twice. That adds up when you’re talking about every child around the globe.

Let’s reverse engineer how Insure arrived at Santa’s salary. First, it classified his position as an “industrial engineer.”

Boy, that job title sure sucks the holiday spirit right out of his rosy cheeks. As industrial engineer, Santa manages the North Pole the other 364 days a year.

Of course, the job offers benefits. Travel. A lot of it. Santa Claus covers 175 million miles each Christmas.

There’s the cookie factor. Boys and girls love to leave sweet treats for Santa. After all, he has that jolly image to uphold, and that jiggly belly is a big part of it. No need to make a resolution to lose weight. That could definitely be considered a job perk.

Now, to the cons. Santa has a ridiculous workload and impossible deadline. If you consider the International Dateline, he has 36 hours to get the job done.

Talk about pressure. All those children counting on receiving their presents. I looked up some impressive “science of Santa” stats. For every one minute on Christmas Day, Santa Claus has to visit 1,163,194.44 homes (for a family of four) to deliver all presents.

Which leads me to a major downside of being Santa. For every one photo op with a child smiling, there are hundreds more of them having meltdowns. I’ll bet every family out there has a Christmas classic of their child crying and/or screaming on Santa’s lap. If you want to crack up, dig out the ones you have stashed somewhere in your family vault.

Or, in this day and age, go to Google and you’ll find slideshows of hilarious Santa pictures.

One last thing about the Santa index survey. Americans were asked what they thought Santa should earn, and 29 percent said $1.8 billion.

Hmmm, on second thought, maybe Santa should ask for a raise.

tjoaquin@hawaiinewsnow.com