How much do world leaders earn? – BBC News

BBC News: “It’s the G20 this weekend so we’ve looked into what some of the world players take home every year.”
Video journalist: Phoebe Frieze.

This video report from the BBC shows the earnings the World Leaders at the 2017 G20 conference take home – or at least, what the BBC gathers their earnings to be.

In this report, the amounts are as follows (converted to USD for comparison).

  • USA – Donald Trump – USD $400,000 (though he has said he will only take $1 in salary)
  • Canada – Justin Trudeau – USD $267,000
  • Germany – Angela Merkel – USD $275,000
  • France – Emmanuel Macron – USD $204,000
  • UK – Theresa May – USD $194,000
  • Russia – Vladimir Putin – USD $147,000
  • Singapore – Lee Hsien Long – USD $1,585,000

Of course, these figures are their salary, and former World Leaders can expect to earn a great deal of money, such as the UK’s former PM, David Cameron, who, it was reported, earned £120,000 (roughly USD $150,000 at the time) for a 1 hour speech in November 2016. A ‘nice little earner’.

A lot of tax paying members of the public complain about politicians, and particularly their leaders, earning large sums of money, but when compared to senior roles in large companies, the salaries above really are nowhere close to competitive. There’s a strong argument, for example, that the lower you pay a politician, the more tempting it is for the individual to engage in corrupt – or at least self-serving – behaviours. When that is considered, perhaps the public should be wary of the lowest earning world leaders, and question what might motivate someone to run a large economy for little or no personal financial benefit?

What do you think – do we pay world leaders enough… or too much?! Leave a comment below.


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