I got watch Ken Jenning's thirty-eighth win yesterday. It was the last new episode of the Jeopardy season so there will be a few weeks of reruns before we see him return to continue his streak. On that show, he set the highest single day winning amount with his score of $75,000 bringing his total winnings to over $1.3 million dollars. Each day this man is bringing home some serious cash. In just thirty minutes, he adds more money to his income than most people make working all year. In fact, i found a listing of average incomes by job so i could judge his daily success by identifying the career whose average annual salary corresponds to his winning total.
On July 2, he won the yearly take home for a bartender. On June 28, he was a file clerk. The week of June 7, he earned the income of a household that consisted of an iron worker, disc jockey, medical secretary, insurance underwriter, and computer service technician. He could easily hire and pay for his own construction crew thanks to June 2's sheet metal worker, June 4's plasterer, June 16's truck driver, July 15's forklift operator, and July 20's construction worker. Friday's win puts him at the level of software engineer, which, coincidentally, is his actual occupation. Imagine going into work for half-an-hour and taking the rest of the year off.
Posted by Matthew at July 24, 2004 07:05 PM