Fortune seekers have been coming to San Francisco in hopes of striking it rich since the city’s formation. First it was gold, then dot-coms, then AI, and now: signatures.
You’ve likely seen petitioners loaded down with clipboards at farmers markets or outside Whole Foods. They might ask whether you’re interested in making billionaires pay their fair share — or, alternatively, whether you want to prevent California from driving away its richest residents. These collectors do the lion’s share of gathering the 875,000 signatures (or 1.4 million, depending on the type of measure) needed to get a proposal on the state ballot.
Passersby may treat these “petition circulators” the same way they treat panhandlers, but the petitioners are earning more than spare change. In fact, per-signature rates are going through the roof.
“A lot of petitioners, including myself, are gonna walk away from this season with over $75,000,” said a man who asked that his name be withheld for privacy. “Some people will probably make over $100,000.”
He added that he made around $17,000 in a week gathering signatures earlier this year. It’s his seventh year in the petition trenches, but this season has been his most lucrative, partly because competing “billionaire tax” measures have driven up the per-signature rate by two to three times. As of last weekend, the rate for gathering signatures in favor of the billionaire tax measure was $12 per name; it started last fall at $4. The opposing measure, backed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin among others, is paying $15 per name, according to data compiled by the consulting firm Bicker, Castillo, Fairbanks, and Spitz.
Brandon Castillo, a partner at the firm and veteran of the ballot initiative game, said he has never seen bounties so high so early in the season. (Campaigns have until the end of April to qualify their measures.) “This is unprecedented,” he said. “It’s a really good time to be a signature gatherer.”
Castillo even encouraged his college-student son to collect signatures for a few weeks over the holidays.
The money has been so good that the petitioner quoted above convinced a friend from his hometown to move across the country and join him. The friend, who also asked to remain anonymous, explained that he moved to the Bay Area after being laid off and got the gig despite having no experience. He estimates he made between $10,000 and $25,000 in the first six weeks.
“I wouldn’t describe it as easy work at all,” he said, adding that he has worked people-facing jobs before. “People being rude or short-tempered is not something I’m new to, but the volume of rejection in this style of work is new.” Even so, the money is great, and he plans to seek out more petitioner work in the future.
(The frustration goes both ways; while many petitioners are polite, some all but shake down unsuspecting grocery shoppers for their John Hancock.)
Attendees cheer during the speech of US Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, during the campaign kickoff for the California Billionaire Tax Act at The Wiltern in Los Angeles on Feb. 18 | Source: AFP via Getty Images
Both men described themselves as left-wing and said they support the one-time 5% tax on billionaires. But they admitted that they’re also collecting signatures for an opposing measure intended to cancel out the tax if it passes.
“People prioritize [measures] based on price,” the veteran petitioner said of his peers. “We need to make a living.”
The two petitioners, like most in San Francisco, are circulating 14 petitions simultaneously. They start with whichever pays the most per name, then go down the list with any pedestrian willing to sign more than one.
Castillo said that’s par for the course.
“There’s no way that the average voter is going to sit there with you and sign 14 measures,” he said, explaining that campaigns know this and fight for the top spot. “Once one campaign makes a move, all the other campaigns have to look to see if they need to adjust.”
Public transportation advocate Cyrus Hall leads the signature-gathering efforts for a proposal that would establish a Bay Area sales tax to fund local transit, as well as a separate San Francisco tax measure that would fund only Muni. He confirmed that all the proposals have driven up the going rate. “There’s so many, particularly at the state level, this year,” he said.
With at least six weeks left in the season, the bounties are almost certain to rise even higher, Castillo said.
A woman collecting signatures Tuesday at Dolores Park declined to give her name but said business was booming. She sat at a folding table, wearing huge shades and sewing a Winnie the Pooh sock.
“If you sit out here on the corner, you’re gonna eat,” she said.