You may think that those wishing to suffer extreme public scrutiny
while making decisions that affect millions of citizens would
demand the big bucks, but when it comes to pay, many world leaders
look like chumps compared to the CEOs of many corporations. While
most salaries pale in comparison to the likes of Warren Buffett's,
some are downright huge when compared to the people a leader may
govern.
Top 10
Political Leader's Salary by Country (2010):
1. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore):
$2,183,516
2. Donald Tsang (Hong Kong): $513,245
3. Raila Odinga (Kenya): $427,886
4. Barack Obama (United States): $400,000
5. Nicolas Sarkozy (France): $302,435
6. Stephen Harper (Canada): $296,400
7. Mary McAleese (Ireland): $287,900
8. Julia Gillard (Australia): $286,752
9. Angela Merkel (Germany): $283,608
10. Yoshihiko Noda (Japan): $273,676
Salary
Compared to GDP
What
makes a world leader's pay reasonable or outlandish? One way of
making this call is by looking at pay compared to a country's GDP
per person at purchasing power parity (PPP). Using PPP helps make a
better estimate of just how far money goes in a country, since the
cost of living will vary from country to country. Comparing each
leader's salary (in international dollars) to the IMF's 2010 PPP
figures shows how much more a world leader makes compared to an
average joe at home.
1. Raila Odinga (Kenya): 255.30
2. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore): 38.51
3. Donald Tsang (Hong Kong): 11.17
4. Nicolas Sarkozy (France): 8.92
5. Barack Obama (United States): 8.54
6. Yoshihiko Noda (Japan): 8.08
7. Angela Merkel (Germany): 7.86
8. Stephen Harper (Canada): 7.57
9. Mary McAleese (Ireland): 7.29
10. Julia Gillard (Australia): 7.21
What do these numbers mean? Looking at GDP per person doesn't show
how a country stacks up in terms of income inequality, a statistic
that can measured using the Gini coefficient. Ranking the leaders
by their country's income inequality can really show how far out of
touch a leader is with those governed. The Gini coefficient changes
things up (zero means perfect equality and one perfect
inequality).
1. Donald Tsang (Hong Kong): 0.434
2. Raila Odinga (Kenya): 0.425
3. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore): 0.425
4. Barack Obama (United States): 0.408
5. Julia Gillard (Australia): 0.352
6. Mary McAleese (Ireland): 0.343
7. Nicolas Sarkozy (France): 0.327
8. Stephen Harper (Canada): 0.326
9. Angela Merkel (Germany): 0.283
10. Yoshihiko Noda (Japan): 0.249
Base
Salary Vs. Perks
When it comes to what a leader is really paid, a distinction must
be made between base salary and additional stipends. Leaders may
receive free residences or residential stipends, free healthcare,
free travel and other perks. They may be permitted expenses that
most people would have to pay for out of pocket. Those figures are
more difficult to come by, especially in the murky world of
political influence.
Less scrupulous world leaders may pad their own bank accounts with
their own country's money through corruption. "Transparency
International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)," first released
in 1995, tracks corruption trends in 178 countries. It assigns a
rank of 10 to countries deemed clean, and zero to countries
considered highly corrupt. Ranking the leaders by how corrupt their
countries are, the ranking shifts to the following:
1. Raila Odinga (Kenya): 2.1
2. Nicolas Sarkozy (France): 6.8
3. Barack Obama (United States): 7.1
4. Yoshihiko Noda (Japan): 7.8
5. Angela Merkel (Germany): 7.9
6. Mary McAleese (Ireland): 8
7. Donald Tsang (Hong Kong): 8.4
8. Julia Gillard (Australia): 8.7
9. Stephen Harper (Canada): 8.9
10. Lee Hsien Loong (Singapore): 9.3
Of these countries, only three would not be considered "full
democracies" by the "Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy
Index:" Kenya, Hong Kong and Singapore.
The
Bottom Line
What do all of these numbers tell us? Leaders of advanced economies
earn very similar salaries to each other, and those countries tend
to be less corrupt and more democratic. While Lee Hsien Loong may
earn 38 times the average resident of Singapore, his country is
considered a good place to do business even if it is not fully
democratic. On the other end of the spectrum, Raila Odinga earns an
incredible amount more than the people he governs, and presides
over a country that Transparency
International would consider one of the most corrupt around (ranked
154 out of 178 countries).
