Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Picture from here, taken by Glenna Gordon.
Deborah Solomon interviews Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. One question was not so thoroughly researched:
Although you are popular internationally, in your own country you have been denounced for your association with former President Charles Taylor, who is currently on trial in The Hague for murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers. I assume you have broken with him?
I learned from the interview that Sirleaf makes $90,000/year. Civil servants make a minimum of $960. That means the president makes about 94 times the salary of the lowest paid civil servant. The US president makes $400,000/year. If I had to guess, I would say the lowest paid full-time civil servant probably makes $25,000/year. So the US president probably makes 16 times the salary of the lowest paid civil servant.
Update: Thanks to Nathan for telling me that GS-1/Step-1 federal employees make $17,540/year. That means the US president makes a salary about 23 times higher than the lowest paid civil servant.
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