I heard this on the radio yesterday, but I couldn’t find it online as I was looking at the wrong magazine. (It appeared in New York Magazine, not The New Yorker.)
If you’ve ever wanted a good idea of how much money various people in New York City make, New York Magazine has conducted an extensive survey.
We’ve compiled a voluminous and eccentric list of hundreds of New Yorkers’ salaries, from the hedge-funder who pulled down more than a billion last year to the Chinese-food deliveryman making four figures (plus tips). There’s Calvin Klein and a guy who sells knockoffs on the street, a cantor and an imam, a first-year assistant district attorney and Sam Waterston, an honorary veteran of the D.A.’s office.
Many people didn’t want to talk about this kind of personal information, but the magazine did have a method of estimating—educated guessing—that could be considered accurate enough for this type of story. The numbers also don’t include perks, just base salary.
Here are some highlights:
- Edward Lampert, the manager of a hedge fund, makes $1.02 billion.
- Barry Diller, chariman and CEO of USA Interactive, makes $156 million.
- 50 Cent, rapper, makes $50 million.
- Sarah Jessica Parker, spokesperson for Gap, makes $38 million.
- A-Rod, third baseman for the Yankees, makes $25.2 million.
- Andy Warhol, deceased artist, makes $16.2 million.
- William Harrison, Jr., the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, makes $15.7 million.
- Kelly Ripa, host of The Today Show, makes $7 million.
- Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, makes $1.5 million.
- Steve Madden, creative and design chief, makes $700,000.
- Hilary Clinton, United States senator, makes $162,100.
- Flower, cocaine dealer in LES, makes $150,000.
- Chelsea Clinton, a consultant for McKinsey & Co., makes $120,000.
- Jessica Coen, a blogger for Gawker.com, makes $30,000.
- Chris, a panhandler, makes $24,000.
- Tom Stewart, a clerk at Tower Records, makes $20,000.
- George M., a street musician at Astor Place, makes $16,800.
- Parakash Patel, a newsstand operator, makes $14,400.
- Mike Kim, Chinese deliveryperson, makes $5,200.
- Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, makes $1.
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It makes me laugh that the panhandler is making a better living than the Tower Records clerk. And he’s probably not paying taxes on it, either.
It makes me sick that Chelsea Clinton makes 6 figures and is pretty close to her mom’s income (which probably isn’t that correct, because I think she would have appearance fees and royalties from her books) all at the age of 25 years old!
Kellly Ripa doesn’t host the Today Show…
Ah, the Regis and Kelly show, right.
It’s amazing to me that Jessica Coen and I make the same amount of money—she’s really something of a New York media celebrity, and I’m an editorial assistant at an academic publishing house.
Money in New York is pretty fascinating—it does seem, in some ineffable way, to be different here than in other places. New York Magazine does a fair amount of interesting reporting on New Yorkers’ money habits.