Audio By Carbonatix
South Florida’s affinity for old-fashioned fibbing seemingly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Miami, long known as a hotbed for schemers and con-artists, regularly claims dubious titles for its deceitfulness and fraud, and a new survey just ranked it among the U.S. metros where residents most frequently fake sick to get out of work, events, and even taking care of children.
The survey, conducted by online puzzle site Sudoku Bliss, ranked Miami residents third for how often they feign illness to skip all kinds of activities. Only Houston (No. 1) and Cleveland (No. 2) outranked the Magic City. This particular form of deceit apparently extends beyond the 305, as Florida is the only state with three cities in the Top 10.
“If you have ever told a little white lie about being sick to get out of doing something, you’re not alone, because we learned that 86 percent of Americans admit to doing the same,” the site reported in its findings.
Surveyors posed questions to residents in the 40 largest cities in the U.S. Questions included whether residents have pretended to be sick to avoid plans, how often they’ve done so, what activities they’ve done this for, why they faked being sick, and more.
“While Miami residents are most likely to fake an illness to get out of caring for a child, we found that more than two-fifths of parents across the country say they have pretended their child was sick to get out of something,” Sudoku Bliss reported. “For one in five parents, this included exaggerating how sick their child actually was, but 23 percent say their child wasn’t sick at all.”
According to the survey, 79 percent of Miami respondents admitted to faking sick, 50 percent have faked being sick two or more days in a row, 32 percent of parents have faked a child’s illness, 46 percent faked being sick to get out of work, 48 percent faked being sick to get out of plans with friends, 37 percent faked being sick to get out of plans with the family (the fifth-highest percentage in the country), and 27 percent faked sick to get out of chores (the sixth-highest in the nation).
