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There’s no way anyone who was doing delivery of newspapers in the 1940s and making $175 nominal. Newspapers then cost roughly 5 cents apiece, and in Omaha a ro
by NordSteve 4y ago
There’s no way anyone who was doing delivery of newspapers in the 1940s and making $175 nominal.
Newspapers then cost roughly 5 cents apiece, and in Omaha a route with 100 doors would take 90 minutes. Your monthly gross sales for a seven day route of that size would be $150, and the vast of that would go to purchase papers. You’d probably net $25, and then get $15 in tips.
That’s about the same amount I made on my route in the late 1970s when adjusted for inflation.
- rufus_foreman 4y agoHe had 3 routes, this was in DC, not Omaha: "Young Warren attended the DC public school Alice Deal Junior High and he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. Buffett says delivering papers at age 14 instilled the importance of hard work and reliability. Wartime Washington was short of adult men and for that reason, says Buffett, he was able to get multiple paper routes at the Westchester Apartments, a five-building complex that was home to the city’s elite. “I also learned,” he says, “that if you did a good job you were going to move up. The very fact that I did a good job in Spring Valley got me the Westchester routes later on.”"
- NordSteve 4y agoThanks for the additional info. Let's assume for a moment that $0.05 is still a good price for newspapers, and assume that the carrier received 20%, or a penny apiece. Also assume that he delivers every day. That's about 580 papers day. If they're really dense subscribers, I guess you could make a delivery every 10 seconds, so about 95 minutes to deliver that number if you never wait for an elevator, climb stairs, etc. Certainly was a great opportunity for Warren, but an outlier for paper delivery earnings.