Insanely Popular Powerball Meme (Falsely) Claims Jackpot Can End All Poverty
File this under "whoops."
A Facebook post claiming the next Powerball drawing could end poverty in the United States has gone viral, except there's one not-so teeny-weeny little problem: it's wrong.
The jackpot is expected to be around $1.4 billion, but when it had reached $1.3 billion a meme began circulating claiming the money divided among all Americans would total $4.33 million per person. Well, before you hail the end of homelessness, you should make sure the decimal is in the right place because, as it turns out, it totals about $4.33 per person -- a fact that is noted in several of the comments.
Even though the math is way off, the meme has spread like wildfire on Facebook, with some 870,000 shares.
Just imagine if the person responsible for this wins. He'd definitely need to hire a financial adviser who's better with numbers than he is.