No, it can't work like that because we can see daily money and while it is sometimes adjusted by small amounts, it stays mostly as reported (I track this very closely). I know Medium SAYS this is how they calculate it, but that doesn't square with the daily stats.

So it could be that the earnings we see are NOT from today's activity but from some jiggling of the previous month. Yet that doesn't seem right, because the earnings mostly track with reads and comments.

I doubt we will ever know how they do this calculation.