John McCain spent more on household help last year than the average American family spends to buy a house.
Also more than he gave to charity: $273k for housekeeping services v. $210k in contributions, out of an income somewhere north of $5m. I guess charity begins at home(s).
Update
One of Matt Yglesias’s commenters makes a useful point:
Bear in mind that all but one of their properties are high-service luxury condo facilities, so that most of the staff to maintain those places would be employed by the various condo associations and not the McCains. The cost of guards, pool staff, door staff, maintenance, even maid service would either be passed along to the residents as “common charges” or billed as services.
In other words, most of the staffing costs for keeping up the condo residences would never show up on an accounting of “household staff.”
It would be interesting to find out what actually goes into that $273K — but the bottom line is that this figure likely disguises as much as it reveals.
My bet is that most of this is spent at the Sedona Ranch alone, but that’s just a guess…