There are about 74 million people in the United States who routinely receive a copy of Parade magazine as a part of their local weekend edition or Sunday edition newspaper. About 16 pages thick or should I say thin, Parade may best be known for their inside front cover which provides a factoid or two on some “where are they now” celebrity, as well as some personal info on today’s 15 minute of famer. That and their advertisements in the back that hawk life insurance for senior citizen’s or some miraculous magnetic appliance that will cure arthritis, tend to be enough for most people to digest. 
Occasionally there is something else that might catch one’s eye. Today for example they printed their “Annual Salary Survey” Around 50 head-shots placed across a few pages featured the person’s name, age, profession, city , state and how much they made in 2010. Not a very scientific study from the looks of it, as it doesn’t present average salaries. Also, we can’t be too sure how the numbers really add up, since some of the self-employed folks may have non-cash benefits that wouldn’t be listed under income. Even among the salaried employees, one would assume the baristas benefits won’t be quite as good as the plastic surgeon for example. And since we don’t see what a plastic surgeon in Huntsville makes, vs. the one listed who is in Las Vegas, perhaps the old adage of location, location, location may play into a bit as well.
Still, it is an interesting read. There were a few surprises and the occasional moment that made me scratch my head. It also made me realize that some of the occupations didn’t exist a few years ago.
There were a few in particular who caught my eye. For example, Dave Carpenter is a 46 year old astrologer from Phoenix, who indicates he made $177,250 last year. Presumably that would come from working as an astrologer or otherwise what’s the point of this survey. So, did old Dave have some way of extracting $1,000 from someone every time he said “Mercury is in retrograde”, or was it something else? One Google search later and I discover Dave has a rather elaborate astrology site, selling all manner of forecast and report. He’s written a book about catching bad guys and solving crimes with astrology and he lectures and does public speaking. He seems to be a bit out in front of some of his peers, who might be supplementing their incomes by also selling incense and dressing up as Barney for kids parties.
There were some other folks profiled, such as Angela, a social media manager from Des Moines, who had reported $42,000 as her income. Seems kind of normal. There’s the aforementioned plastic surgeon from Las Vegas, who put down $1,000,000. Big business in botox. An Air Force Captain at $103,000, seems about right. There was Elinor from Miami who is an obituary writer pulling down $75,713. I do a bit of writing myself and it’s generally been accepted knowledge that writing obits was a relatively thankless beginning job for a writer, that I would expect to carry a salary of less than half that. Of course this is Miami, where quite literally people are dying to get out. Maybe she’s racked up a bunch of overtime.
There’s an eBay seller making $110,000 per year. Certainly not indicative of what somebody should expect to make on eBay, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility. A speech pathologist from Olympia, Washington made $66,000. Perhaps a little low for New York or California, but I’m guessing right in there for Washington. We have a massage therapist from Bismark who reports $43,000. I was going to make a joke about making more with happy endings, but I’ll restrain myself. A tattoo artist listed his income as $40,000. Okay. There’s a postal clerk from Oregon who listed $58,500 as her salary. Now that’s certainly nothing to go postal over.
I found some rather low numbers. A few surprises and one in particular, which hits near and dear, may be the closest thing I have found regarding the true income of someone in this profession in a long time. But I’ll get there in a minute.
We have a winemaker listing $25,900. I would expect that number to be a bit higher. Of course, we don’t really know the circumstances. Maybe it represents some growing pains. A lifeguard from Ocean City, N.J. makes $7,000. I’m guessing that figure is for a couple to 3 months tops, which if so, puts our lifeguard well ahead of the winemaker, but still a bit below making the Forbes list. A DeeJay from Miami lists $30,000 as his salary. Perhaps that’s because he has to spend $28,000 a year, 99 cents at a time downloading tunes.
And now we get to the finale. Drum roll please. Making less than a barista from Denver ($17,500), a graphic designer from Meridian, Mass ($12,180) and less than our lifeguard, when we account for the short working season, is our Voice Over actor, a Ms. Caitlin Maloney, who is 27 is from a major market of New York City and claimed a whopping $10,000.
Despite every article every written extolling the glamorous and wonderful life of a voice actor, here we see in black and white that the single lowest income represented in this entire survey is that of the voice actor.
Now I don’t know Caitlin. She has a great big smile in the head-shot accompanying this article. And far from being somebody who appears to have just rolled out of bed and cuddled up to a microphone, Ms. Caitlin graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Hartford with a BFA in Musical Theatre and English. Her bio indicates dozens of additional acting and voice over classes. This, along with her list of credits makes me think that the figure of $10,000 was more of a gross income and might not take into account the $10,000 she seems to have spent on these additional classes, websites and memberships, demo production and other expenses. So her “salary” for last year might be hovering somewhere around <-$5,000> or so. At best it’s a few bucks.
Perhaps it would be nice if people were taught just a little more about the truths of acting, rather than constantly being motivated by having big juicy carrots dangled in front of them.
Caitlin by the way doesn’t represent the average voice actor. She represents a voice talent doing far, far better than average. With a bit of luck and perseverance, she might make some decent money some day. I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know her and have no idea what connections or proponents she might have.
Some people say that when I write articles like this, I am extinguishing people’s flames of passion, bursting their bubbles or stomping their dreams. I think that at best I may be tossing a bit of cold water into the faces of a few who are so taken in by the hoopla and b.s., that they not only haven’t stopped to see if anything makes sense for them, but whether anything makes sense at all.
I should also mention that many of the people whose online persona’s make them the ultimate cheerleader and who simply cry “go for it”, without the slightest bit of rationale are just as bad as the people who ply money from the desperate, unemployed and emotionally bankrupt, who preach that voice over will provide a path to full life contentment, financial rewards and cure acne.
This same survey indicated that only 23% of people hate their job. Is it possible that one can be fulfilled by doing some sort of job other than voice actor?
By the way, I’m not saying that any of this is the case with Caitlin. Nor can I comment about the people she has trained with, worked with, etc. Like anything, this biz has its good, bad and ugly.
I believe that this tiny mention, about the size of a postage stamp, in a throwaway newspaper, might be one of the few cases where I have seen a voice actor have the courage to tell the truth in this fashion and actually have it published.
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Nice article, JSG. Sad, but true.
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