Can you guess who the highest paid President of the United States was? Naturally, because we expect wages to increase, we might say Donald Trump since he is the most recent president. However, he is not the highest paid president. Just the opposite. Technically, he is the LOWEST paid president. Determining the highest paid president is a bit difficult due to the inflation (or deflation) of the dollar.
George Washington obviously was the first paid president even though he didn’t want to be paid as a public servant. He believed this was his duty and that he should not be compensated for that work. While serving in the military, he refused his pay. Once elected to office, he waved off any form of compensation. When word got to Congress, they vetoed President Washington, believing that without a salary, it left an elected official vulnerable to others plying for his political favors.
It was decided that “the president was to receive an annual salary of $25,000 … with the Vice President receiving $5,000, the chief justice earning $4,000, and members of the president’s Cabinet receiving $3,500.”1 While this doesn’t seem like much to us today, an inflation calculator says that $25K in 1789 would be worth $913,252.84 today2. That is a LOT more than our current POTUS receives.
It took us electing our 18th president and 76 years before the office of president got a raise. Ulysses S. Grant’s salary was doubled to $50,000. The inflation calculator’s adjustment means that Grant would have been receiving $986,088.96 in today’s currency.
Taft got the next pay raise in 1909, taking his salary to $75,000 ($2,649,436.81 today). Truman got the next raise in 1949: $100,000 ($1,350,693.28 today). In 1969, the pay went up to $200,000 ($1,751,852.86 today) and in 2001, it went to $400,000
($726,064.37 today). By 2020, $400,000 would only be worth $496,832 today. And, in 2024, the value of $400,000 went down to $410,142.
Numbers of this magnitude probably don’t garner a lot of sympathy from us. But would you want the job of president? I know I don’t! Yet, we armchair referee his decisions and critique his work as if we could do better if given the chance. It doesn’t matter which political party is in office, there will always be tons of Americans thinking they could do better.
Honestly, I don’t know how you fairly and adequately value the worth of a profession. Why can some people make hundreds of thousands of dollars every year while others get minimum wage? Is one job or worker better than another? Is their worth or value more?
While you stew on that, here’s something Jesus said in Luke 10:7. “… for the labourer is worthy of his hire…” Nothing complicated in that message, is there?
Deuteronomy 24:14-15 gives some early instructions on this topic. “Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: (15) At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.” People desperate for work are often exploited. They need money and will work for anything. The person hiring them thinks, “I can get a lot of work out of this person for little money because they are desperate.”
That is NOT good business. It is inhumane and unethical. It is the vile, degrading treatment of a needy individual who needs a hand up, not a foot pushing them down.
Let me make a practical application of this. Biblically, we are supposed to work in order to care for ourselves and our family. If you have a job needing done and you are able to hire a person who desperately needs the work and pay, don’t take advantage of them. Instead, reward them substantially as a means to encourage and respect their work ethic as well as helping out a fellow human.
Jeremiah 22:13 says, “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work.”
1https://interestingfacts.com/presidential-salaries/?lctg=0124851e-d797-40d6-bcc8-5fe6cdcc0cda
2https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1776?amount=25000
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