How much money do beggars make?

Anecdotal accounts suggest a few panhandlers do quite well. [One] couple estimates they can make $30-40,000 per year from panhandling. "...some people are making $150 to $300 or $400 a day..." One hesitates to generalize from such stories, though.

In short, it's pretty hard to get good data on the issue. Michael Scott summarized matters as well as anyone: "Most evidence confirms that panhandling is not lucrative, although some panhandlers clearly are able to subsist on a combination of panhandling money, government benefits, private charity, and money from odd jobs such as selling scavenged materials or plasma." If I were you, I'd keep my day job.