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Comment by vaksel | Hacker News Reader

a begger in a big town like NYC can clear 90-120K no problem.

In order to make $90,000 begging, you would have to get $250 every day of the year. This seems highly unlikely. I'd say most beggars make more like $20 a day, but I'm just doing armchair science here.

The Straight Dope has gone there: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2255/how-much-money...

I knew a busker who made £20 per hour in a city with 300,000 population, this is around $30 per hour.

While commuting back and forth to Seattle on the ferries, my dad said he heard a couple people comparing how much they'd made begging that day and it was in the $200-$300 range. They had been disappointed in the "slow" day.

The problem with this is that it's the same as asking a bunch of people how much they make - it's always overstated.

Right, I don't understand the downvotes though, I was simply giving the only data point I had. Anecdotal though it is, from this, I don't see it as entirely unreasonable for someone in a larger city like NYC to make as much as my original post's grandparent suggested.

I also don't see any reason for two beggars talking amongst themselves (albeit loudly enough for others to hear) to inflate their daily income more than $100 or so, _especially_ if they're commuting (which costs ~$7/day) to do so.

>I also don't see any reason for two beggars talking amongst themselves...to inflate their daily income

Well, the short answer is pride. The long answer would be that they do it for the same reasons that you or I would do it if we were asked our salary on a form, knowing that it would be compared, even anonymously, to others. It's the reason why HR firms basically ignore any data that asks an employee for their salary as being inaccurate.

yes but you have to look at the density of people.

$250 every day = $25/hour if you "work" 10 hours a day. So 1 person donating $1 every 2.4 minutes.

In that 2.4 minute period, there are probably 1,000 people walking by. Is it really that far fetched, that 1 out of those 1,000 people will "give back"? Especially in a city like New York where there are plenty of high income individuals?

Analysis is not evidence. Yes, it sounds reasonable. But that doesn't mean it's true. There are many factors your simple model doesn't take into account.

I guess the problem is reasonable to me is not necessarily reasonable to someone else. It still blows my mine that someone could make so much money begging. I haven't read the above posted article, but it still seems unlikely to me that beggars make that much money.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is: The average beggar doesn't make anywhere near that much. I can imagine some especially good ones that make a solid living doing it, but most don't make much.

The person he replied to said it "seems highly unlikely". This isn't a peer-reviewed journal here. We're speculating. I will mention that I gave $20 dollars to a girl last week who claimed she had had her stuff stolen and didn't have enough money to get a train back to her house. There's a significant chance she was scamming me, and the point is, with a plausible story, I'm pretty sure you can find many "suckers" every day.

I, too, think it's highly unlikely that a panhandler is clearing $90k a year, since that would place them in a higher income bracket that every working person I know in NYC. I meant his analysis sounds reasonable, not that it actually is. That's the problem with using simple models: you're seduced by simple reasoning applied to complex problems. The ancient Greeks analysis of matter sounded reasonable, too. It is only with further reflection that the reasonable sounding analysis does not hold up.

This is peer-review. I'm curious what the truth is, so I'm going to consider the validity of someone's speculation and criticize it accordingly.

i've heard this before but haven't been able to verify. do you have a source?

This American Life did a podcast (can't find it at the moment) where they followed two guys who decided to become homeless, and beg for money in NYC while trying to write poetry and stories. Each guy easily cleared 60k, as I recall. So it's definitely doable.

In fact, another article I read told about a couple in Portland, Oregon that cleared 50k between the two of the begging.

This American Life source does not appear to check out on 60k while homeless figure:

"Gregory: I was making 60 grand a year, 60 grand, not working hard. If I wanted to push it I could push it to 70. They want you to do over time on Wall Street. Wall Street judges you by your overtime. So yeah, I was raking it in. And I was spending it just as fast on alcohol. I would get up at 8 at night, take a shower, have a pint of Jack Daniel?s on me when I got into my car and drove to work."

Poetry sample:

"A Few of My (cough) Favorite Things"

  Waking up achy, And out in the open. 
  Guard dogs are barking. Before words are spoken. 
  Wrought iron benches, That causes suff-ring. 
  These are a few of my favorite things.
  Taking a shower, With four dozen others. Moving around,
  In a stench that can smother. Finding that you,
  Are the source of the stink! 
  These are a few of my favorite things.
  When the bottles dry, And the smokes are gone, 
  And I'm feeling low

http://www.prx.org/pieces/29262/transcripts/29262

real homeless folks don't have the "ummf" to clear 50k (the reason they are homeless); they get enough for a beer or whatever and they stop begging.

Perhaps, but why would a person give money to someone begging with an iPhone?

probably not, but i've met three homeless people with iphones. they don't usually have data plans, they just have the phones. maybe wifi?

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