Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum Here, the holiday season can
Speaker 1: be magical, joyous, festive, and expensive, very very expensive. And
Speaker 1: if you think we mere mortals have a hard time
Speaker 1: keeping up with the food, shopping, gift giving and otherwise
Speaker 1: high priced merriment, imagine how Santa Claus feels. Well. A
Speaker 1: London based company by the name of True Luxury Travel
Speaker 1: did just that, putting themselves in the shoes of Jolly
Speaker 1: ol st Nick and plotting out his Christmas budget. Of course,
Speaker 1: many holidays are celebrated around this time of year, and
Speaker 1: consumers who don't even have reindeer tend to spend a lot.
Speaker 1: According to a Gallop report from earlier in December, of
Speaker 1: Americans planned to spend an average of eight hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty seven dollars on gifts this year. This number has
Speaker 1: held pretty steady since, but it hardly accounts for the
Speaker 1: time and effort necessary to produce, package, and ship all
Speaker 1: those gifts all over the world. While some may believe
Speaker 1: that all that magic happens through factories and shipping agencies,
Speaker 1: others know that the real magic happens in the North
Speaker 1: Pole here's what Santa could be spending to fulfill all
Speaker 1: those dreams. Okay, there are approximately two billion children in
Speaker 1: the world, give or take a few hundred million, and
Speaker 1: because a fair number of non Christians are known to
Speaker 1: celebrate Christmas, that means that approximately of the world's population
Speaker 1: commemorates that day. That adds up to about nine million
Speaker 1: kids getting gifts on Christmas, and not just one toy each,
Speaker 1: mind you. Let's set the number of gifts that kids
Speaker 1: receive that day at a nice, even and arbitrary ten.
Speaker 1: That means Santa's workshop is churning out approximately nine billion toys, books,
Speaker 1: and ugly sweaters. Some are more costly to make than others.
Speaker 1: But if you assume even a very low two and
Speaker 1: a half euros per gift, that's twenty two point five
Speaker 1: billion euros on the whole lot, which is about twenty
Speaker 1: three point nine billion U S dollars as of this recording.
Speaker 1: And Santa is good, but he's not a one man show.
Speaker 1: A true luxury travel estimated that he'd need around one
Speaker 1: thirty two thousand elves to do all the menial labor
Speaker 1: in the workshop. And now, of course, we do not
Speaker 1: have numbers about the wage rates at the North Pole.
Speaker 1: But let's take, for example, the federal minimum wage here
Speaker 1: in the United States, which is seven dollars and twenty
Speaker 1: five cents an hour. We'd hope that Santa is giving
Speaker 1: his elves a competitive pay rate and robust benefits package.
Speaker 1: But even at that bare minimum, if all those elves
Speaker 1: are working forty hours a week, year round to ensure
Speaker 1: those gifts go out on Christmas Eve, that's fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: and eighty dollars per year per elf. For an army
Speaker 1: of elves, that's about one point nine billion a year.
Speaker 1: And again with hope, it's a lot higher. Estimates for
Speaker 1: the cost of employing a factory worker for a year
Speaker 1: in North Pole adjacent Finland ranged around forty one thousand
Speaker 1: euros or over forty three thousand U S dollars including benefits,
Speaker 1: so it could be completely reasonable to assume three times
Speaker 1: our initial estimate, or around six billion US dollars. And
Speaker 1: then you have to keep the workshops lights on and
Speaker 1: the heat. The North Pole chill is no joke, and
Speaker 1: the workshop must be massive and estimated one point two
Speaker 1: million square feet or about a hundred and eleven thousand
Speaker 1: square meters and so assuming US prices, the clauses could
Speaker 1: be shelling out another one point six billion on electricity
Speaker 1: and two point two million on natural gas, so another
Speaker 1: one point eight billion total. And let's not forget those reindeer.
Speaker 1: The aforementioned travel company relied on the estimated cost of
Speaker 1: owning a horse to calculate the cost of caring for reindeer.
Speaker 1: The average cost of maintaining a horse in the US
Speaker 1: is three thousand, nine hund dollars a year, and Santa
Speaker 1: has at least nine reindeer, including Rudolph. Also, if we
Speaker 1: assume santa sleigh is as expensive to maintain as a
Speaker 1: luxury car, then he's shelling out at least one thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars a year to keep things running smoothly
Speaker 1: all told, including a range of other factors including snacks
Speaker 1: for the staff, but workshop overhead and suit upkeep. True
Speaker 1: Luxury Travel estimated Santa's yearly budget at forty seven billion
Speaker 1: US dollars a year. They're not a sponsored, by the way,
Speaker 1: they just wrote a delightful blog post. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Santa Claus's workshop budget will blow
Speaker 1: your mind on how Stuff Works dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Michelle Konstantinovsky. Brain Stuff it's production of I heart Radio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuff Work dot Com, and it's
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
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