Stripping: A Wise Economic Choice
jackslash
Detroit strip clubs
Girls may become strippers for various psychological reasons, but they all strip to earn money. It seems to me that stripping is a wise economic choice.
Let me first mention a few statistics about US incomes, because it appears to me that most TUSCL posters have higher than average incomes. The median US wage is about $30,000 a year, meaning that half of workers make less. About 75% make less than $50,000, and about 25% make less than $15,000.
Dancing in a strip club presents young women with a good alternative to other jobs. They can, without much education or effort, put themselves in the upper 25% who earn over $50,000 a year. For a girl without experience and with only a high school education or less, stripping is a good career choice.
It is hard to get any reliable data on stripper income. But from my experience, it seems reasonable to me that a dancer working 3 days a week can earn $75 an hour for a 6 hours shift, pay a $100 tip out, and net $1050 a week. For a year, the dancer would take home $54,600, and not be bothered with those pesky payroll taxes and income taxes.
The alternative for most dancers would be a job earning between the minimum wage and 2 times the minimum wage. But stripping is even better, after taxes, than working for 4 times the minimum wage.
Before Tax After Tax
Min Wage $15,080 $13,293
2 X Min $30,160 $25,259
4 X Min $60,320 $47,289
Stripper $54,600 $54,600
Stripping makes economic sense for a young woman.
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32 comments
Not saying these generalizations apply to each and every one, but still these are not rarities either. Stripping as a job, can fuck up even the most sane female.
Let's say a girl works 6 hours a night, 4 days a week. At the club she works at there are table dances for $20 and the girl gets to keep all of it. If she can manage to do 5 an hour (at one song a piece, this is easy) that's $20 x 5 which equals $100 right into her pocket. If she manages to do this the entire night that's an easy $600 that the club doesn't get a cut of. Now, this club also has 1/2 champagne rooms for $300 and of that the girl keeps $150. Doing one of those a night will net the girl $150, which covers her minimum tip out ($20 to DJ, $10 to house). We're at $720 right now, not counting stage money and misc. tips. This is obviously a kind of best case scenario, but unless you're ugly/stupid/a dumpster human/not much of a hustler/you work in a shithole it's easy to net over $2k a week. I have no idea how some girls can't make their rent/car payments/whatever. It's actually mindboggling.
So, I wouldn't say it's a living hell at all. Really, as an attractive female, you're going to have to deal with douchebags wherever you go. It's nice to get compensated for that and believe it or not... YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO DO! That's right. Unfortunately, a lot of dancers don't have much of a long-term vision and don't really make any preparations for the future. The trick to making it as a dancer is to approach it as a business and not a lifestyle/hobby/whatever the fuck else.
I'm pretty upfront with my friends and family about what I do, but I'll agree with you that it does put unnecessary strain on relationships. The kind of guys that want to date strippers are not the kind of guys that I want to date.
There are definitely cons, but they don't bother me enough to toil as a wage slave and as they say... better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
I know of a previous ATF who was a great girl with a great personality who is now in real estate (through a connection she made as a dancer) and is doing great for herself and working on becoming a broker.
But I agree it CAN be a better paying job than what else would likely be available. The issue for most dancers seems to be what duo said: "The trick to making it as a dancer is to approach it as a business and not a lifestyle/hobby/whatever the fuck else."
Working erratically taking weeks off, leaving early not to mention blowing the money after they've got it.
Most “regular†jobs are no walk in the park and are often very stress-filled. I have heard many more non-strippers (male, female) complain about their jobs and the hell that it is, than strippers complain.
No job is perfect – it is more the exception than the norm that people “love†what they do and have no complaints - IMO.
My ATF told me she made a little over $63k working just days per week.
She claims just a portion of it and has a couple of kids so she gets a several thousand dollar tax refund because of the EIC.
On top of that, gets food stamps and free medical for the kids.
EZ money IMHO.
As for the amounts before and after tax.... you're not factoring in benefits. For the sake of argument let's assume the US goes bankrupt soon and social security no longer exists (those pesky payroll taxes)
Before Tax After Tax Benefits
Min Wage $15,080 $13,293 None?
2 X Min $30,160 $25,259 possible heath insurance
4 X Min $60,320 $47,289 health + retirement
Stripper $54,600 $54,600 none
Yeh it's better than minimum wage, but there is no future. No tangible job experience to get something else with comparable pay. Not paying taxes = no credit for car or home. One medical problem and you're bankrupt for life without health insurance. It may be a good deal 'now' but the long term costs aren't in a girls favor by any stretch of the imagination.
OT: this is a big reason why I only really like stripper who can pull of the 'student stripping part time' angle. I know. I know it all a lie. But lifer who started at 18 and still doing it at 40+ just makes me depressed any more. If stripping is a means to an end, fine. It is not and should not be a life's career.
Yeah, but they have to grind their ass against PLs and pretend to like then? How many girls could stomach that?
1. guys no longer find you attractive due to your age, or
2. the economy tanks.
I didn't believe her claims of saving such an impressive sum and I have no intention of investing even a penny in her goofy proposal but while we were in Hawaii on vacation in January sweetie really pressed me for cash. She had a half-assed business plan and she showed me her investment and savings account statements. Be damned if she doesn't have that $500K in savings! It is in mutual funds and laddered 5 year GICs.
I gave her some solid advice about a better investment regime for her savings but she was having none of it. She is bound and determined on going ahead with her business idea.
Good luck to her is all that I can say.
Yeah, after making $100 million+ in the oil business, what the hell would you know about making money, right, art? :-)
@stripclubromer: I rather be stripping than being back on a ship. The military has done more harm to my emotional, physical, and financial health than stripping. I had been actually sexually assaulted in the military, while in a club I haven't. While stripping, my bills are always paid on time while I have to be penny pinching while in the military. While stripping, I have quality time to spend with my spouse and son unlike the military. It sounds weird, but when I strip I feel pretty sane and well adjusted but when I do my military duties (reserve) it's awful in the mental part.
@Duo Maxwell: weekly averages vary a lot in different parts of the US, and the rest of the world. While in Richmond, Va or Austin Tx a normal week is like 900 bucks a week, in Baltimore or Dallas is about 2.2K a week working about three days a week.
@mjx01: not so much. If getting a vanilla job, a dancer can arrange the words in a way that would make her seem as if she was self employed and got skills in the money managing field, a very desirable skill for people working in the financial industry. Or, a dancer might be savvy with the pole and decide to open a dancing studio (in the Hampton Roads area, I know two former dancers who had opened dance studios near the navy bases). So, it's completely false saying that stripping doesn't teach any additional skills other than pole dancing and lap grinding. Plus, a dancer who's going to school for psychology can do a great deal of research in a strip club with them customers. Also, health insurance isn't only acquired through a vanilla employer; a dancer can buy an individual premium, or be covered by her spouse or another relative's premium. Plus, any smart dancer would get disability insurance (I pay 55 @ month for mine through Met Life). Last, but not least; a good number of dancers (especially around big military installations) are receiving or waiting some form of VA or DoD compensation and stripping is basically the only job they can do because the military really messed them up.
Anyone that posted in this thread and thinks that stripping is some kind of dead end absolutely lacks imagination.