Christmas season arrived and with this thousands of people in the world are given the task of buying food, Christmas trees, gifts and the occasional luxury.
Now, if for us mere mortals, these expenses could be difficult for us, imagine the problem you face Santa Claus every year, who must give toys to each child.
That is why the British company True Luxury Travel did an investigation, based on surveys and other numbers in order to determine the exact budget that Saint Nicholas needs annually for his purpose.
Naturally, Santa Claus has to spend tons of money to keep his workshop moving at full speed, despite the fact that Christmas is not celebrated by everyone.
According to a Gallup report, Americans will average $ 1,000 in gifts this year, and that hardly represents the time and effort required to produce, package, and ship those gifts around the world.
But while many believe that this “magic” happens through factories and shipping companies, the reality is that it happens thanks to the North Pole. 😬
How many toys do you need?
According to UNICEF, There are 2.2 billion children in the world, but not all celebrate Christmas, which means that approximately 45 percent of the world’s population commemorates the day.
Therefore, the number of children who receive gifts is about 900 million children and we well know that they do not receive just one.
According to surveys by True Luxury Travel, children receive an average of 16 gifts each; of course, this refers not only to toys, but to clothing, school supplies, among others, which they naturally receive from “other Santas”, such as Grandpa Santa Claus or Uncle Santa. 🤫
Santa’s budget for this year
So this means that Santa’s workshop is producing approximately 14.4 billion toys each year, what the money averaged for each gift, would amount to an approximate amount of $ 41.6 billion dollars.
But this sum only covers the cost of the gifts themselves and of course, they are not made by themselves.
True Luxury Travel estimates that the great white-bearded man would need around 132,000 elves to do all the work in his workshop.
However, a number of factors come in here, including the hours in an elven workday and the toy-making rate per hour, so the 132,000 elves is only an estimate, but could be many more.
Now, honestly, I do not know the minimum wage per hour for an elf (although I looked it up on the Internet), but what is known is that the minimum wage in the United States varies depending on the city where you work, being $ 7.25 dollars an hour the lowest (official) and up to about $ 15 dollars in cities like Washington.
If Santa were a little tough on his elf workers, then he would pay them the official minimum, that is, about $ 7.25 per hour, which represents about $ 290 dollars a week (40 hours of work), which translates to $ 15,080 dollars. year.
If we multiply this amount by 132 thousand elves, we would discover that Santa Claus spends about $ 1.9 billion a year on elf labor alone.
But in addition to these costs, there are others that must be added, for example, the payment of gas and electricity.
True Luxury Travel assumes that Santa’s workshop, located at the North PoleIt has about 1.2 million square feet, so it could fork out $ 1.34 per square foot of electricity plus 18 cents of natural gas per square foot.
That equates to another $ 1.6 billion in electricity and $ 2.2 million in gas, so we would add $ 1.8 billion to the above amounts.
To make matters worse, the company assumes that Santa must pay the rental costs of the place, which would add up to $ 1.2 million a year, although it could be a price below the market.
But … who brings the gifts? We all know that reindeer do this difficult task, so the estimated cost of having each one is estimated to be about $ 3,876, the same cost as a horse. If we multiply it by the eight reindeer, we would be talking about this cost rising to $ 31,008 a year.
Finally, we must assume that Santa’s sleigh is as expensive to maintain as a luxury car, then the great Santa must be shelling out at least $ 1,780 a year for everything to run smoothly.
Let’s add it all up: Santa Claus spends more than $ 45.3 billion a year so that all the children have a Merry Christmas.
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