It’s not easy being the leader of a country, a fact that becomes evident when you look
at before and after photos from when they first sat in the big seat and when their status
as leader came to an end.
They seem to age a lot.
You’d think they’d be paid handsomely for this post, but that’s not always the
case.
Let’s go ahead and have a look at the wages of presidents around the world.
We should say before we start, that some countries have a monarchy and they have a prime minister,
while some countries have both a prime minister and a president and other just a president.
Today we’ll focus on the heads of government and not kings or queens or presidents you
haven’t heard of.
In some nations the president holds the highest position, yet it is the prime minister that
is more hands-on so might be the leader you have heard of.
We’ll also choose 30 people for you, from the ones who are paid very little to the ones
who get the big bucks.
We cannot cover the whole world obviously.
The International Monetary Fund will provide a lot of the data, although some information
we found was quite outdated so we’ll try and give you the latest numbers we can find.
30.
Jorge Lopes Bom Jesus This guy is the 17th and current Prime Minister
of São Tomé and Príncipe.
If you’ve never even heard of this island nation, it lies off the coast of Africa.
It’s reported that his yearly earnings are in the region of $2,100.
He studied in France and has a wife and five kids, so we might wonder how he gets by on
such a paltry wage.
He is said to be very well-educated and comes from a humble background.
29.
Askar Mamin This is the prime minister of Kazakhstan and
it’s said he earns $2,630 a year.
One of his main mandates as leader is to try and improve wages in the country, so let’s
hope he ends up getting paid a bit more.
We also found a source that told us his net worth had increased $500,000 in the last year.
28.
Abiy Ahmed This man is the PM of the Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia.
It’s said he earn about $3,600 a year.
We found another source that said he earned slightly more, which equated to him earning
just $15 a day.
Another source that was based in Africa wrote, “On a salary of just $300 [they mean a month],
Abiy Ahmed's Mission as Prime Minister in Ethiopia is not to amass wealth but to overhaul
the economic model of his country.
This is the type of leadership ideology Africa needs, don't you agree?”
In an interview the leader said, “I am not getting rich, but I am not corrupted.
I have a modest office.”
27.
Maia Sandu Welcome the prime minister of Moldova.
According to the World Monetary Fund she earns $6,433 a year.
She’s been fighting to raise wages in the country for some time now.
26.
Nguyễn Xuân Phúc This prime minister of Vietnam is said to
have a wage packet of $8,000 a year.
The Vietnamese media reported in 2017 that he got himself a wage rise of one percent,
but then so did all civil servants.
We found another source that said he earned almost $10,000, which is about $36 a day.
25.
KP Sharma Oli This Prime Minister of Nepal is said to earn
around $10,000 a year.
The Marxist leader has a bit more cash, though, as he and his wife own a fair bit of land.
24.
Andrej Babiš This one is quite remarkable and the Czech
PM is said to earn in the region of $10,000 a year.
The thing is, though, he’s a billionaire so he doesn’t exactly need the money.
In fact, in 2019 there were protests against him in the streets, with his critics accusing
him of corruption and intimidation.
23.
Li Keqiang This guy can be called the Premier of the
State Council of the People's Republic of China but you can call him PM and it won’t
hurt his feelings.
It’s said he earns just $13,269, which isn’t much when you consider the wealth in China.
22.
Ali Asadov This PM of Azerbaijan we are told earns $17,000
a year.
He’s only just come to power and we can’t really tell you that much about him.
21.
Sheikh Hasina This Prime Minister of the Government of the
People's Republic of Bangladesh has had this position for a long time and it’s said she
earns about $17,000 a year too.
That’s what the IMF says, but we found another source that said she gets about five bucks
a day only.
She has stood up against corruption and been accused of corruption herself.
We found yet another source that also had her on just over five bucks a day, so maybe
she doesn’t get that 17,000 a year.
20.
Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré This guy is the Prime Minister of Burkina
Faso and it’s reported he earns $17,700 a year.
Now we will look at the middle earners in the world of leaders.
19.
Hun Sen The PM of Cambodia is said to earn around
$30,000 a year.
He’s played down his wealth before, but some experts think his net worth for his family
is perhaps as much as one billion dollars.
Still, a few years ago he said, “Besides my salary I don’t have any other income.
But I think my children will support me, they won’t let me starve.”
His critics say he’s an outright liar and corrupt as well, but that wouldn’t be unusual
in today’s politics.
Let’s just say his family have their fingers in a lot of pies.
18.
Prayut Chan-o-cha Welcome to Thailand and the PM who took over
after a military coup.
This guy’s right hand men have recently been in the news, one for being caught and
imprisoned for trafficking large amounts of heroin when he was younger and another for
having an array of fabulously expensive watches that only millionaires could afford.
These military guys seem to have stacks of cash, but the PM is said to earn less than
$50,000 a year.
He’s said to be worth millions of dollars, but like his rich and powerful buddies, he
claims he can justify his wealth.
17.
Mateusz Morawiecki This is the Polish PM and it’s said he earns
$57,772 a year.
This millionaire ex-banker was called by Foreign Policy.org “a Technocrat Banker and a Far-Right
Populist at the Same Time.”
Yet another rich man in power, so we guess there is a thread.
16.
Viorica Dăncilă The Romanian PM we are told is paid about
$60,000 a year.
We found a source that said she is worth $12 million, but we can’t say if that is true
or where that wealth comes from.
Her husband might earn a good wage as he works in oil.
15.
Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi This guy is the PM of Samoa and it’s said
he earns around $78,000 a year.
His net worth, though, is huge at around $600 million.
Some sources say it is even higher.
14.
Pedro Sánchez The PM of Spain gets about $97,000 a year.
He comes from an upper-middle class family, is very well educated, but according to recent
reports he doesn’t know much about ham.
13.
Mia Mottley The PM of Barbados is said to earn around
$100,000 a year.
She also came from a well-off family and got herself a good education at the best schools.
She is the first female PM of the country.
12.
Giuseppe Conte The Italian PM came from a humble background
and didn’t seem to receive a silver spoon.
However, he was gifted and so achieved lots in school.
This eventually led to him studying abroad, with a stint at Yale, too.
His wage is said to be about $130,000 a year.
11.
Saad Hariri This is the PM of Lebanon and he is said to
make in the region of $140,000 a year.
It seems he has some cash, as the New York Times alleged he paid $16 million to a South
African model he had a relationship with.
Where did he get that kind of cash?
Family money is the answer, and there is a lot of it due to all kinds of big business
including telecommunications and banking.
His father was also powerful and for a time PM, but he got assassinated.
Ok, now to the really big earners.
We mean in terms of wages, not like this guy who likely doesn’t even need his PM wage.
10.
Uhuru Kenyatta This is the President of Kenya and he earns
something like $190,000 a year.
He’s the son of the man called the founding father of Kenya, so politics runs in the blood.
Business also runs in his blood and like many others on this list his fingers are in a lot
of pies.
We can’t find his updated net worth, but some years ago he was worth half a billion
dollars.
His wage is even higher if we include packages, but that’s likely similar for many people
we have mentioned today.
9.
Mark Rutte The PM of the Netherlands is said to get about
$197,000 a year.
Apparently he isn’t as powerful as other PMs of the world due to how the Dutch do things
over there.
He comes from some money it seems, with his father working as a trader around Asia.
Still, on this list it seems his net worth is meagre.
8.
Boris Johnson The new UK PM Boris Johnson is certainly a
controversial figure, disliked by some for his sometimes crude remarks and loved by others
as the guy to put Britain first again.
He has had an equally controversial career as a journalist, and in his youth could be
said to have been one of those posh Old Boys who have funny haircuts and strange accents.
He certainly comes from cash, but is said to be paid $215,980 a year.
Fox News in 2019 told us his net worth was about £1.6 million, which is about two million
dollars.
7.
Stefan Löfven Unlike Mr. Johnson this man had a tough start
to life.
He was orphaned when young and grew up with a working class family.
He later spent some time training as a welder at the Unemployment Career Training center.
He then became a welder and later supported the trade as a unionist.
That’s how he got into politics.
He now gets paid around $240,000 a year.
6.
Leo Varadkar This guy gets about the same as the former
leader.
His father is of Indian descent, went to Ireland and became a doctor.
There he met his wife, a nurse.
Varadkar is only the fourth openly gay head of government in the modern age.
His salary according to the IMF is $237,000 a year.
5.
Katrín Jakobsdóttir According to the IMF this PM gets about $240,000
a year.
She’s been a lecturer and also worked in media.
Then she became the second female PM of Iceland.
4.
Justin Trudeau The PM of Canada we are told earns about $260,000
a year.
It’s said money was given to him from his father which in turn came from his grandfather.
He is certainly a millionaire, and has earned quite a bit of money from his side business.
In 2019 it’s said he is worth $13 million.
Others have put the figure closer to 10 million.
3.
Jacinda Ardern This woman was born to a cop and a catering
assistant but got into politics really early and just climbed up the ladder.
The New Zealand PM is said to earn a whopping $325,000 a year.
While she makes the big bucks she didn’t come from cash and so doesn’t have the big
bank account.
2.
Donald Trump Maybe the most controversial man on the planet
right now is the American president, Donald Trump.
How much he has earned or lost is constantly speculated over.
We know the White House wage is $400,000, but all added up it’s closer to $550,000.
When he came to office he said he wouldn’t take even one dollar of that.
He doesn’t need to, with an estimated net worth of $3.1 billion according to Forbes
in 2019.
We should say that the Swiss leader and German leader get paid a bit more, but as you know,
we haven’t included everyone on this list.
1.
Lee Hsien Loong The same goes for the Hong Kong leader, Chief
Executive Carrie Lam.
She is a top earner, but she doesn’t get as much as Singapore’s PM, Lee Hsien Loong,
who earns a base salary of $1,610,000.
Some news reports state that with all the extras added on it’s more like $2.5 million,
which is some wage for a leader.
He also said he didn’t need that much and asked for a decrease.
Does he need it?
Not really, he’s a successful businessman from a rich and powerful family and he has
a net worth of at least $50 million.
What do you think of this list?
If you come from one of these countries, tell us in the comments what you think about your
leader.
Also, be sure to check out our other episode What If World Leader Punches Another World
Leader?
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.