Word on the wires is that the voice-cast of The Simpsons animated television show have resorted to a work stoppage to get a pay raise.
The cast currently gets $125,000 per episode and are seeking a boost to $360,000 per episode.
This has happened a lot recently, with tough negotiations on the part of actors to get a bigger piece of the pie, especially for successful shows (such as Friends, Fraiser, Everyone Loves Raymond and so on).
To a certain degree, this has some validity: The shows are cash cows, and they – the cast – should get a substantial cut of said pie.
On the other hand, greed seems to drive a lot of these negotiations. Let’s look a little more closely at the Simpsons’ story:
- Each season is 22 episodes
- Voice actors currently get $125,000 per episode: $2.75M/season
- Each voice actor is asking for $360,000 per episode: $7.92M/season
- This doesn’t count any other benefits (such as syndication royalties). Base pay only.
- They are voice actors; while – in some ways more difficult than other types of acting, they don’t have to do the following:
- Dress up for shows
- Have as many revisions due to other actor’s miscues and so on
- Look good – the whole Hollywood obsession with youth, no wrinkles and so on. They are just voices
- While I don’t know this for a fact, I don’t see each season’s taping as taking more than 22 weeks (overall). So this leaves approximately one-half of the year for them to pursue other paying tasks (yes, there may well be some contractual limitations on what they can do).
In addition, the taping for the shows probably takes place in either LA or NYC – two cities with high costs of livings.
But…come on…how tough is it to get by on $2.75M a year?
Let’s do some math: The median household income for the U.S. is approximately $43,000 – that’s per household, not per person.
So to match the salary a single Simpsons’ actor pulls in for one year, the median household would have to work for 64 years. That’s right – if they drop out of school at 16 and work for the years necessary to gain the base income from one year of Simpsons’ voice work (at current rates, not with the desired raise), they will have to work straight through until they are 80 years old.
Youch.
This is not really a ding at the Simpsons’ actors; it’s just that this is a nicer package to compare the lunacy of TV/sports/CEO salaries with those of average folks.
Yes, I know you can make arguments for the high salaries – such as athletes have short careers compared to, say, a CPA. Agreed. But why then does the athlete’s short career pay more – way more – than the longer career of the CPA? Where’s the parity? And what chance does a CPA have to get Nike endorsement contract?? (My accountant will sure never garner this, unless Nike changes its motto to “Just Eat It”…)
I guess it’s the disparity that’s troubling, and this also extends to studio honchos/team owners, as well. Part of the problem – as mentioned earlier – is that actors/athletes just want (at one level) their fair share.
Which is fair.
I think that, in many cases, the Suits (execs) are screwing the cast/athletes over.
But it’s still hard to feel sorry for someone whose fair share is 66 gazillion dollars, and they only got half that. Actors/athletes – by their very nature – are public, so they are vested with more criticism for greed than the Suits, but all should share the blame.
I just saw a short blurb – one of those bottom screen-crawlers – on CNN that looked at the average cost to take in a ballgame: Four tickets (Typical nuclear family: Mom, Dad, 2.2 kids and you leave the 0.2 kids in the car…), four hot dogs, four cokes, two hats, parking: $155
Let’s take that median family ($43,000/yr) and a current Simpsons’ voice actor ($2.75M/yr).
Leaving aside taxes – and my guess is that the tax rate will be approximately the same for both parties, as the actor has a financial analyst/planner – the Median Family will spend approximately 18% of their weekly income on this game. The Simpsons’ actor (singular – what if two incomes in this family?) will spent approximately 0.3% of a weekly income on this game.
Something is horribly wrong here….in oh so many ways….