I've been reading the posts to this thread and I think it is time for a reality check.
In fact, I once did ask an MPA what she made and why she was in this business rather than, say, working in a department store. She told me that by working on Saturdays and Sundays only (she was a college student during the weekdays), she made as much as she would by working in a department store five days a week. Specifically she told me that she made $500 a weekend working a 12 hour shift on Saturday and Sunday. She also mentioned that she would typically see 3 to 4 clients on each of these days.
So a few conclusions can be drawn from her comments. 1) Even by working on the weekends, she had a lot of downtime to catch up on her college studies. 2) Clearly, the weekends are the busient days of the week, so it is doubtful that she would be making $250 per day working on the weekdays. 3) She was one of the most popular MPAs in this establishment, so the average MPA working there was making less. 4) By seeing an average of 3.5 clients per day, this MPA was making about 71 dollars per client.
So now lets do the math. Say a not-so-popular MPA is working mostly on the weekdays. She sees 2 to 2.5 clients per day. At 2 clients per day, she would be making 2 x $71 x 5 days per week x 50 weeks per year = $35,500 per year. At 2.5 clients per day, she would be making $44,375 per year. Not a lot of money but more than she would make by working as a saleslady in a retail establishment making, say, $12 per hour or $24,940 per 52 weeks. And of course working at an MP, this MPA is actually only working 2 to 3 hours a day. It is also unlikely that an MPA pays taxes on all the money she makes. (The MPA I spoke with actually did confirm this fact.)