Thursday, August 21, 2008

How Many Servants Does McCain Have?

By my calculations, based on data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, the average number of homes owned per household in the U.S. is 0.8. In contrast, McCain owns so many that he can't remember the exact number. Yglesias argues for seven, but I'll go with eight, as per the Politico's analysis. I've put together the simple graph at right showing the comparison. For lots more on this, here's one of many stories and don't miss the Google Earth tour of the McCain residences.

The Politico says their budget for household help was $273,000 in 2007, which seems paltry to staff eight houses. I'm curious as to how many servants--chefs, maids, butlers, etc.--the McCains have. Maybe an enterprising journalist could ask!

1 comment:

Jonah B. Gelbach said...

hey dp

i don't have the tpc scoring in front of me, but do you think that $273k is enough that if mccain's hh staff payroll were one hh's salary, that hh would get a sizable tax cut under his plan?

and: that graph is just priceless.