Want to Get Rich? Win an Olympic Medal for Azerbaijan
How does the United States stand up against other countries in rewarding our Olympic athletes? Not well
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Most Olympic athletes aren’t in it for the cash prizes. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, if you take into account the actual medal weights, each Olympic gold medal (1 percent gold and 99 percent silver, actually) is worth about $655. Silver medals are valued at $335, and bronze medals are a measly $5.
The real payout for Olympic medalists (aside from lucrative advertising deals available only to a select few) comes in the form of cash bonuses from their government, Olympic committee or private foundations. The U.S. Olympic Committee, for instance, awards gold medalists with $25,000, silver with $15,000, and bronze with $10,000. But making things work, financially, as an Olympic athlete is hard. Recently, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, and U.S. Representative Aaron Schock, of Illinois introduced a bill, the Olympic Tax Elimination Act, to make it so these cash prizes are no longer taxable by the IRS.
So, how do medalists’ bonuses in the United States stack up to those of other countries? Check out this infographic from Visual.ly.
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