Write your Own Editorial -Part 2

Feb. 21, 2002
This is the second installment of our collection of dollar values. Part 1 appeared in our February 7 issue. As always, these figures may or may not evoke amazement or amusement.
Editorial CommentFebruary 21, 2002

Write your own editorial - Part 2

All values are for domestic annual spending in 2000 or 2001, and the figures are not documented.

Salary of speechwriters and press secretaries at the White House: $114,500. Total pay of a Parma, Ohio, policeman who augmented his base salary by aggressively writing speeding tickets: $106,100. Average household income in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area: $99,800. Salary of the executive director of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission: $97,760. Salary of the superintendent of schools in Richmond Heights, Ohio: $88,265. Top of the salary range when an executive director was being recruited for the Charles Darwin Foundation located in the Galapagos Islands: $80,000. Amount Wisconsin taxpayers had to pay ACLU lawyers who won a court fight allowing prison inmates to have pornography: $77,617. Salary of a Northwest Airlines mechanic: $70,600. Average salary of a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati: $65,647.

Salary of a conductor on the New Jersey Transit system: $55,000. Median household income in New Jersey: $54,226. Base pay for a Delta Air Lines senior flight attendant: $44,600. Salary of the chauffeur for the secretary of defense: $41,557. Median household income according to the 2000 census: $41,343. Salary of a ranger at Yosemite National Park: $40,000. Typical earnings of an Estee Lauder beauty adviser selling cosmetics in a department store: $33,000. Starting salary of an Ohio state trooper: $32,000. Median annual tuition for private day schools: $13,345. Average spending per student in the New York City school system: $9,500. Debt carried on the average personal credit card: $8,123. Fee United Airlines pays to fly over Russian airspace enroute from New York to Hong Kong: $8,000. Average cost of a funeral: $5,808. Median monthly mortgage payment: $1,307. Spending by the typical family on wireless phones, pagers, Internet connections, and cable or satellite TV: $1,015. Typical amount stolen in a retail store's incidence of employee theft: $1,004.

Typical starting salary per match for a referee in the World Wrestling Federation: $1,000. Typical weekly salary of a caddie on the PGA Tour: $800. Median monthly rent payment: $612. Price of a chastity belt for males sold by a company in Lindenhurst, N.Y.: $440. Price of a chastity belt for females sold by the same firm: $375. Annual sales per square foot in a Nordstrom department store: $357. Price of a 300-lb anvil: $265. Annual sales per square foot in a Target department store: $220. Typical amount stolen from a store in an incidence of shoplifting: $158. Approximate cost of a pint of blood: $150. Average cost of having federal, state, and local tax returns completed by H & R Block: $92. Average price of having a clogged drain cleared by Roto-Rooter: $89. Price of an ounce of Russian Beluga caviar: $70. Typical daily wage for a temporary day laborer: $70. Value of one pound of Sacagawea dollar coins: $56. Value of one pound of quarters: $20. Value of one pound of dimes: $20. What the IRS spends to collect $1,000 of tax revenue: $3.90. Value of one pound of pennies: $1.82.

,000 of tax revenue: $3.90. Value of one pound of pennies: $1.82.Finally, a question: What high-school athletes lose the most time from their activity because of injury? Answer: Cheerleaders. And I'll close by mentioning that I have recently been accused of engaging in autodidacticism. I vigorously deny this accusation.

- Ronald Khol, Editor

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