Spare Change: the numbers don't add up

For those who have never heard of it, Spare Change is a newspaper sold by people who are or were homeless. It sells for $1. I once bought a copy many years ago by accident, thinking the guy was trying to distribute a flyer. I browsed it, and it seriously did not have much content.

Today, I walked by a man selling Spare Change. There are a couple of them in Harvard Square, and this man was in a rather obscure spot (outside the Post Office, if anyone cares). It occurred to me that he would be better off working at something else than selling newspapers. I estimated a generous 1 copy per hour, which would earn him at most $1/hour. Based on my groundless speculations, the effort did not seem worth it.

Some numbers are available online here:
8000 copies sold every 2 weeks
60 active vendors
$0.75 profit per newspaper sold.

The math gives an average of 133 copies per vendor every 2 weeks or 10 copies a day. Sounds decent? Well, it depends on how many hours a vendor spends selling the papers. Think of it as making $7.50 a day. I hope no one spent more than 1 hour a day selling it.

If you were "sober, respectful and courteous" vendor, perhaps you would be able to get a job if you tried really hard. Any job would make you a few dollars an hour. Maybe the vendors should stop selling Spare Change.