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Tuesday 10 October 2017

Salary

A salary is a form of payment from an employer to an employee, which is usually paid for a fixed period of time, like a month or a week. If someone is not a salaried employee, they are generally an hourly employee.


Part of a Roman soldier's pay was made in salt, known as "salarium". That is why the pay of today is known as a salary.

In 1592 Galilei Galileo was appointed to the chair of mathematics at Padua University, at the time the premier university in Italy. As a mere Mathematics University Lecturer, Galileo received 160 scudi per year, 1/30th the salary of a Professor of Medicine. As Galileo's university salary could not cover all his expenses, he was forced to take in well-to-do boarding students whom he tutored privately.

In August 1599 Galileo was rewarded with a new, six-year contract, retroactive to December 1598, with a salary of 320 ducats doubling of his salary. This meant he was now one of the highest-paid professors at the university.

Galileo by Justus Sustermans 

The salary for Britain's first official Poet Laureate in 1668 was £200 a year plus a butt of canary (110 gallons of Spanish sherry).

Congress voted to pay George Washington $25,000 a year during his presidency. After initially declining the salary, he ultimately accepted it to avoid setting a precedent whereby the presidency would be seen as limited only to independently wealthy individuals who could serve without any salary.

George Washington's salary of $25,000 a year was equal to 2% of the total U.S. budget in 1789.
Apparently excited by his newfound purchasing power, Washington started living it up, reportedly buying leopard-skin robes for all his horses and spending seven percent of his income on alcohol.


Lord Nelson's annual salary, at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, was approximately £600pa.

In 1830 in the UK, a select committee recommended that the salary of the First Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister) and other senior Cabinet ministers-except for the Lord Chancellor- should be £5,000 per year.

That recommendation was accepted by Parliament in 1832. The beneficiary of this first prime ministerial salary was Earl Grey. Parliament also gave the Lord Chancellor an aggregate salary of £14,000 per year.

The Salary Grab Act, passed by the United States Congress on March 3, 1873, doubled the salary of the US President and those of Supreme Court Justices. Until the Salary Grab Act was passed, President Ulysses S. Grant earned the same salary as George Washington did 80 years earlier. However, President Grant signed the act the day before his inauguration for a second term, sparking a firestorm of controversy among members of the government, the general public, and the press.

Members of the U.S. Congress raised their own pay to $7500 each in 1907. Both House and Senate members got the same bucks while the Cabinet members and the Vice President would earn twelve grand.

On May 4, 1912, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to establish a minimum wage law. The law applied only to women and minors and set the minimum wage at 22 cents per hour for employees in certain industries. However, the law was not well enforced, and penalties for violators were light. It wasn't until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 that a federal minimum wage was established in the United States. 

Babe Ruth made his major-league debut with the Boston Red Sox in 1914 at an annual rookie salary of $2,900.

Winston Churchill was on a prime minister's salary of £10,000 pa in 1943.

The salary of the President of the United States was increased from $75,000 to $100,000 in 1939 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance added for each year in office.

John F Kennedy did not keep his $100,000 salary; instead he donated it to charity.

The current US Presidents annual salary is $400,000 pa. Adjusted for inflation it’s the lowest it’s been since 1789.

José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano became President of Uruguay in 2010 serving for five years. During his time in office Cordano was called "the world's 'poorest' president" because he donated around 90 percent of his $12,000 monthly salary to charities to help poor people and small entrepreneurs.

José Mujica in 2009.

There is a $44,000 salary cap for unionized doormen in New York City.

Homer Simpson makes around $25,000 a year at his power plant job.

The lowest paid job in the United Kingdom are the four people who are pursuivants to the King of Arms. The wage is £13.95 per year. They were fixed at higher levels by James I but reduced by William IV in the 1830s and remained the same since. The position hasn't seen a wage rise since the 1500s. Their job is to advise the monarchy on matters of ceremony.

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