How much salary do apostles receive?

[All-American]

Here's a good article:

From the 1830s to the 1990s, LDS church finances have experienced many significant transitions.1 This is an overview of highlights during 160 years of tithing, salaried ministry and voluntary service, business activity, revenues, personal use of church funds, church indebtedness, and public disclosure. This chapter shows that LDS finances have not always functioned as they do today and that the financial sacrifices of Mormons have been great, indeed.


To begin, by divine injunction since ancient times, God's disciples have seen themselves as "not of the world" (John 17:14). This has resulted in various religious communities regarding themselves as outside the ordinary definitions and expectations of society and of the world's leaders.2


Theologically, Mormonism has never accepted the "worldly" distinctions between secular versus religious, civil versus theocratic, mundane versus divine.3 An 1830 revelation declared: "Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither [unto] any man, nor the children of men . . ."4


In reaction to hostile critics, the First Presidency issued this formal statement in 1907: "The charge that the Church is a commercial rather than a religious institution; that its aims are temporal rather than religious; that it dictates its members in their industrial activities and relations, and aims at absolute domination in temporal affairs,—all this we emphatically deny."5 The difficulty with such a denial is that LDS leaders were stating criticisms of their church in the categories and assumptions of non-Mormons, but answering them in the categories and assumptions of Mormonism. In Mormon terms the LDS church is not "a commercial rather than a religious institution," but the LDS church is commercial because it is religious. Likewise, Mormonism's aims are not "temporal rather than spiritual," but its aims are temporal because they are spiritual. And all questions of dictation and absolute dominion—economic or political—are based on the Mormon view of the supremacy of free will. In other words, whether it is the political dictates of Mormon leaders or the prosperity of an economic institution of the LDS church, Mormonism has dominion only insofar as Mormons choose to allow it (see chaps. 7-10).


Mormons have always been irritated by complaints and hand-wringing about "Mormon power" (whether financial, political, or social). In 1984, for possibly the first time, two non-Mormon writers declared the LDS perspective of the hierarchy's financial power: "These are money managers, but unlike any other kind of money managers. . . . The wealth and power, in the end, come down to the essentials: The church is in the business of expanding the church. . . . a temporal structure whose major goal is spiritual—the building of the Kingdom of God on earth in preparation for the millennial reign of Jesus Christ."6


There are both continuities and discontinuities in Mormon financial history since Joseph Smith, Jr., organized a new church on 6 April 1830. The most significant difference involves the definition of tithing.


Tithing


Since 1831 LDS bishop Edward Partridge and his counselors had presided over all Mormons in Missouri, which had equal status with church headquarters in Ohio.7 In December 1837 they defined tithing as 2 percent of one's net worth, after deducting debts. "Believing that voluntary tithing is better than Forced taxes," the Missouri bishopric defined it as "two cents on the dollar or one fiftieth of what we are worth after deducting what we owe."8 Until 1908 Mormons were allowed to pay tithing in labor, personal property, livestock, and produce in addition to cash.9


In July 1838 Joseph Smith dictated a revelation which required a more stringent financial sacrifice from Latter-day Saints. It defined the law of tithing as a donation of all the individual's "surplus property" at first, and then a tenth of annual income thereafter (D&C 119:1, 4). In November 1841 the Quorum of the Twelve made the first liberalization of the 1838 tithing revelation: the initial donation was reduced to only "one-tenth of all a man [possesses, and] 1/10 of increas[e]" afterwards.10


In August 1844 the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles issued an epistle which required all Mormons to immediately pay "a tenth of all their property and money . . . and then let them continue to pay in a tenth of their income from that time forth." There was no exemption for Mormons who had already paid one-tenth of their property upon conversion.11 In January 1845 a Quorum of Twelve's epistle reemphasized "the duty of all saints to tithe themselves one-tenth of all they possess when they enter into the new and everlasting covenant: and then one-tenth of their interest, or income, yearly afterwards."12 However, two weeks later the Twelve voted to exempt themselves, the two general bishops Newel K. Whitney and George Miller, and the Nauvoo Temple Committee from any obligation to pay tithing. This was due to their services to the church.13


Apostle John E. Page's enforcement of the full-tithing requirement for the rank-and-file led to his disaffection from his own quorum. Exempted from tithing himself, Page felt guilty about collecting tithing from others such as one Mormon who gave $4 which was "the tenth of all" the man and his impoverished family possessed. Upon abandoning the Quorum of the Twelve in 1846, Page complained that he "believes that many paid tithing & in consequence of [this, were in] want of money enough to procure misc. necessaries of life."14


Five years later Brigham Young provided a penalty for those Mormons who did not comply with the published definitions of the law of tithing. In September 1851 a special conference at Salt Lake City voted to accept excommunication as punishment for non-payment of tithing and non-observance of the Word of Wisdom's prohibition of tobacco and spirituous alcohol. Neither requirement was enforced consistently or often.15 Nevertheless, in 1854 the Deseret News printed a notice by the bishop of the Salt Lake City Nineteenth Ward that Enoch M. King was disfellowshipped "for repeatedly refusing to conform to the rules of said Church, in the law of Tithing." In October 1858 a bishop's meeting asked Presiding Bishop Edward Hunter: "Are all to be cut off who do not pay their Tithing? Answer, deal according to circumstances, and the wisdom God gives."16


On this matter Apostle Erastus Snow was more zealous than most. In 1868 he gave orders to southern Utah bishops to excommunicate everyone "who will not keep the word of wisdom, Pay their Tithing & donate of their substance to help bring the Poor Saints from the old country." A local Mormon estimated that enforcement of Snow's instruction "would cause 3/4 of this community to be cut off from this church."17


For the church as a whole, Brigham Young publicly estimated that Latter-day Saints had paid less than 10 percent of their 10 percent tithing obligations from 1847 to 1870.18 In other words, adult Mormons were contributing, on average, less than 1 percent of their net worth at conversion, less than 1 percent of their net worth upon arrival in Utah, and less than 1 percent of their annual income. However, pioneer definitions of tithing delinquency varied radically. In Cache Valley during the same period, local bishops concluded that 90 percent of people who could pay tithing were full-tithe payers. The difference in perspective was due to the fact that these Cache Valley bishops "excused" a large portion of the population from tithing due to poverty. The church president's report made no such distinctions.19


After President Young's announcement of tithing delinquency, LDS general authorities gave sermons to remind church members that the law of tithing was "one tenth of all we possess at the start, and then ever after one tenth . . ."20 Apostle Erastus Snow even reinvoked the 1838 revelation's original requirement to donate all surplus property at first.21 These sermons were futile efforts to reverse a nineteenth-century trend of financial non-compliance. Otherwise faithful Mormons withered before an overwhelming tithing obligation. Young told the October 1875 general conference that neither he nor anyone else "had ever paid their tithing as it was revealed and understood by him in the Doctrine and Covenants."22


John Taylor tried to increase church donations by liberalizing the law of tithing for the first time since 1841. On the fiftieth anniversary of the church's organization, he declared a biblical Jubilee Year in which he forgave half of the delinquent tithing and half of the debts owed to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund.23 After the Jubilee year of 1880 failed to bring in the unforgiven half of delinquent tithing, the church president offered a carrot-and-stick approach to tithing in 1881. On 8 January 1881 Taylor said he did not care whether Mormons paid the "one-tenth of the property of the new comers" to Utah, as required by Brigham Young. However, the Presiding Bishopric's tithing clerk recorded that, on motion of the LDS president, the assembled priesthood holders voted unanimously to sustain the requirement of "one tenth of the property on entering the Church, and one tenth of the increase afterward."24 At this stake conference in January and again at general conference in April 1881, President Taylor instructed stake presidents that church members now "must be tithe payers" in order to have recommends for temple ordinances.25


The early tithing requirements of Mormonism give added significance to the numbers of immigrants to Utah before 1881 and to the numbers of LDS converts prior to 1899. At a personal level, any Mormon who paid a full tithing by nineteenth-century definitions (like the man who gave $4 in 1845) was deserving of awe and veneration. Then in May 1899 Lorenzo Snow publicly announced a revelation which limited the law of tithing to one-tenth of annual income with no massive payment upon conversion. As an LDS church president, Snow is best known for his emphasis on observance of this new definition of tithing.26 This was the last LDS liberalization of the 1838 revelation on tithing. From then until the present, Mormons have been allowed to decide whether to pay tithing on their gross income or net income.27


Lorenzo Snow's announcement was undoubtedly the cause for a significant increase in the percentage of Mormons who paid at least some tithing (see Table). In 1890, 17.2 percent of LDS stake membership had paid some tithing, and the percentage hovered around 15 percent for seven years. In 1898 the percentage of stake members who paid some tithing was only 1 percent higher than in 1890. In 1899, the year of Lorenzo Snow's announcement, the number of tithe payers in the stakes jumped to 25.6 percent.28


In early 1900 President Snow asked the Presiding Bishop to prepare a list "of non-tithe payers and about 10,000 names were in the record."29 Snow told the apostles that non-payment of tithing "was worse than the non-observance of the Word of Wisdom" prohibitions against tobacco and alcohol. The time had long since passed when general authorities were exempt from the obligation to pay tithing, and one apostle was shocked to learn that Apostle John W. Taylor's "name is on the Non-Tithing List!"30


In April 1910 the church president announced it was necessary to comply with this greatly reduced law of tithing in order to have temple recommends.31 This 1910 announcement was a reincarnation of the poorly enforced First Presidency announcement in 1881. Since 1910 bishops and stake presidents have given greater attention to the requirement of tithing for temple recommends. Higher expectations of tithing compliance were possible because twentieth-century Mormons have had it easy regarding their tithing obligations compared with nineteenth-century Mormons.


Table 1.
LDS Stake Members Who Paid Some Tithing, 1890-1925
(per capita for total membership)


TITHE TITHE TITHE TITHE
YEARS PAYERS YEARS PAYERS YEARS PAYERS YEARS PAYERS


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1890 17.2% 1900 27.0% 1910 21.6% 1920 21.9%
1891 15.1% 1901 28.9% 1911 21.0% 1921 20.7%
1892 15.8% 1902 28.2% 1912 20.6% 1922 28.4%
1893 14.9% 1903 28.5% 1913 21.0% 1923 27.3%
1894 15.7% 1904 27.6% 1914 20.1% 1924 25.1%
1895 15.3% 1905 26.4% 1915 20.0% 1925 25.3%
1896 15.1% 1906 26.1% 1916 20.1%
1897 15.6% 1907 26.8% 1917 21.8%
1898 18.4% 1908 26.0% 1918 21.3%
1899 25.6% 1909 25.0% 1919 22.3%


Of course the figures in this Table were significantly higher than the percentage of stake members who paid a full tithing. During the pre-Depression first quarter of the twentieth century, the highest percentage of full-tithe payers was in 1910. In that year 16.5 percent of the church's total stake membership of men, women, and children paid a full 10-percent tithing.32 However, neither of the above measures adequately assesses individual compliance by Mormons concerning their church's requirement for tithing.

The annual reports did not regularly list the number of wage-earners or consistently show the percentage of wage-earners who actually paid tithing. The 54,346 full-tithe payers in 1910 were a much higher percentage (though unquantifiable) of the wage-earners among Latter-day Saints in the stakes that year. For example, in the very next year 59.3 percent were full-tithe payers of the total wage-earners. Likewise, the highest percentage (28.9 percent) who paid any tithing in that quarter-century amounted to 74,625 tithe payers in 1901. That had to be an impressive record for the Mormon wage-earners in the stakes that year, for the lowest rate of tithe paying during that quarter-century was 20 percent of total stake population in 1915. In that latter year 73 percent of wage-earners paid at least some tithing.33 The praise of Mormon leaders for the financial devotion of LDS church members has never been exaggerated.


Tithing donations from the widow's mite to the rich man's abundance have always been the essential source of LDS church revenues. When Esquire magazine's August 1962 cover story claimed the church's revenues were $1 million a day,34 tithing revenues were actually about $100 million that year instead of $365 million.35 This 350+ percent error was due to careless research and a wild guess by Salt Lake City's non-Mormon mayor, J. Bracken Lee: "I do know that the net income exceeds a million dollars a day."36 With far more attention to available details, a carefully researched estimate of 1991 was probably closer to the mark in claiming that the LDS church received $4.3 billion in annual tithing revenue.37 The accuracy of this estimate is debatable, since recent tithing figures are unavailable for research.


However, annual tithing revenues for the decade prior to the Esquire estimate are helpful for estimating recent LDS church income. In 1962 tithing revenues were about $56.62 per capita for total LDS membership that year, nearly double the per capita tithing revenues of $28.65 in 1952. In real dollars (a term in economic history), the 1962 tithing equalled $253 per capita in 1990 dollars.38 Therefore, assuming similar tithing observance in 1990 (without including the observable annual growth rate), this would translate to $1.96 billion in tithing revenue during 1990. From that perspective, LDS Public Affairs in 1991 rightly dismissed the estimate of $4.3 billion of annual tithing income as "grossly overstated."39 However, by including the growth rate of the earlier reports by LDS headquarters, it is difficult to regard $4.3 billion as a "grossly overstated" estimate of annual LDS revenues in the 1990s.


A nearly 100 percent growth rate in the actual dollars of per capita tithing from 1952 to 1962 cannot simply be ignored when estimating the LDS church's present income. That decade included the explosive growth of LDS conversions outside the United States and Canada. There is no reason to discount similar growth in tithing rates during the three decades since 1962. With the 1952-62 period as a basis of comparison, the church's tithing revenues for 1990 would be far in excess of the estimate of $4.3 billion. From this perspective that estimate seems conservative.


However, it is important to recognize that tithing from Mormons outside the United States has rarely ever been transferred to church headquarters in America. Except for the early years of the British Mission (established in 1837) and of the Canadian settlements of Mormons (begun in 1887), Mormon tithing funds have remained in the countries of their origin. The first reason for this is that foreign outposts of Mormonism have been financial drains on the church's general funds, which typically supplement local tithing collected outside the United States. In the nineteenth century it was more practical to use foreign tithing for the immediate needs of the missions and branches in each country where it was collected. Physical transfer of overseas funds required months of travel to and from headquarters in the United States.


The second reason for keeping tithing in the country of its origin was that the church lost money in exchange fees for every transaction involving U.S. dollars and foreign currency. The third reason is that (particularly in the twentieth century) laws of some countries either complicated or prohibited transfers of tithing to the United States. The bottom line is that the net flow of tithing funds has been from Salt Lake City to other countries where Mormons have converted and eventually built chapels and temples.


Both the definition of tithing and the extent of its payment have evolved since 1831. The LDS church could not have become the international organization it is today without the development of regular tithe paying.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

And where did all those investments and businesses come from? Tithing.

I think you are parsing.

To whom does it matter that their salaries don't come from tithing, but from the investment of tithing? People that want to claim we dont' have a paid clergy?

That may have at one time been true, when the Church was first involved in setting up businesses (ZCMI and so on), but I'd guess the church is not any more using tithing as investment capital. At least not in the traditional sense.

[All-American]

Paid Ministry and Voluntary Service


Even less recognized than the change in tithing definitions is the existence of a paid Mormon ministry. Before the church even had a tithing requirement, it had a paid ministry. In November 1831 a revelation declared: "He who is appointed to administer spiritual things, the same is worthy of his hire . . ." (D&C 70:12). This was the doctrinal basis for giving financial support to Joseph Smith, and later to a hierarchy of general authorities.


In May 1835 an official church council voted that the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and First Council of Seventy "have particularly to depend upon their ministry for their support, and that of their families; and they have a right, by virtue of their offices, to call upon the churches to assist them."40 When Bishop Edward Partridge gave the first definition of tithing in December 1837, part of the tithing was for "remunerating the officers of the church for the time which they were necessarily employed in doing the business of the same." Six months later the stake high council voted "to instruct the Bishop to pay the First Presidency, J. Smith, & Sidney Rigdon, whatever sum they agree with them for." However, there was "such an uproar" over this decision that the First Presidency dropped its request for a fixed annual salary.41


For several decades only the patriarch had a set compensation, while other general authorities depended on haphazard donations from the rank-and-file or ad hoc appropriations from general church funds. In 1835 the Presiding Patriarch was authorized a salary of $10 a week, plus expenses.42


Both the Presiding Patriarch and local stake patriarchs charged a fee. In the 1840s the fee was $1 per patriarchal blessing at Nauvoo; by the end of the nineteenth century it had increased to $2 per blessing.43 Joseph Smith, Sr., gave patriarchal blessings without payment of a fee, but would not record them.44 "Uncle" John Smith commented that he "lived very Poor ever Since we Left Kirtland Ohio" in January 1838 until January 1844. Then his nephew Joseph Smith ordained him a patriarch "through which office I Obtained a Comfortable Living."45


Financial incentive is another explanation for the fact that individual Mormons received more than one patriarchal blessing in the nineteenth century, often at the invitation of the patriarch. In October 1877 John Taylor criticized the monetary motivation of some stake patriarchs. He said they were using their patriarchal office as "a mere means of obtaining a livelihood, and to obtain more business they had been traveling from door to door and underbidding each other in the price of blessings."46


In addition, patriarchs received fees for giving unrecorded blessings of healing to the sick. In fact, Apostle Francis M. Lyman commended Patriarch Elias Blackburn for "doing a great deal of good among the sick, without receiving very much pay for his services."47


Patriarchal blessing fees ended in 1902, although patriarchs were allowed to accept unsolicited donations.48 Not until 1943 did church authorities prohibit patriarchs from accepting gratuities for giving blessings.49


In the nineteenth-century American West, local officers of the LDS church obtained their support from the tithing they collected. As early as 1859 Brigham Young wondered "whether a Stake would not be better governed when none of the officers were paid for their services."50 During Young's presidency, ward bishops drew at will from the primarily non-cash tithing Mormons donated. He complained at October 1860 general conference "against a principle in many of the Bishops to use up all the Tithing they could for their own families."51


Even full-time missionaries benefitted from tithing funds in the nineteenth century. The senior president of the First Council of Seventy commented in 1879 that the families of married missionaries should be supported from tithing funds.52 However, at best that practice barely kept struggling wives and children out of abject poverty while their husbands and fathers served two-year missions.


In 1884 church president John Taylor limited bishops to 8 percent of tithing they collected (now primarily cash), while stake presidents got 2 percent of tithing collected by all the bishops of the stake. In 1888 Wilford Woodruff established set salaries for stake presidents and provided that a stake committee would apportion 10 percent of collected tithing between the bishops and the stake tithing clerk. At April 1896 general conference, the First Presidency announced the end of salaries for local officers, in response to the decision of the temple meeting "to not pay Salaries to any one but the Twelve."53


Nevertheless, ending salaries to stake presidents in 1896 was temporary. For a while stake presidents and their counselors were allowed to draw "from the tithing fund . . . no more than the limit which had been previously specified, and not to entertain the idea that a stipulated compensation attached like a salary to certain offices in the Church." By April 1897 the First Presidency spoke about "the subject of compensation to presiding men" in a meeting with stake presidents and other local officers. The First Presidency urged "the brethren to give their services so far as possible to the church without remuneration." In 1898 "the regular 10% of tithing [was] allowed Bishops and clerks for handling the same," but the First Presidency balked at allowing even more to cover expenses for supplies.54


By 1904 set salaries were back again for stake presidents, who were allowed $300 per year.55 As late as 1910, local officers continued to receive 10 percent of locally collected tithing "for handling tithes."56 Recently a Mormon said that his father received a cash allowance as bishop in the 1920s, which was a later period of such compensation than my own research has verified.57


In addition, since the 1880s stake presidents and bishops of long tenure had received retirement allowances in monthly or annual payments.58 In 1901 even the parsimonious church president Lorenzo Snow said that a financially struggling stake president "ought to receive his remuneration after he was released as well as before." Retirement allowances for stake presidents continued into the early 1900s.59


As previously mentioned, financial compensation for church officers began with the general authorities in the 1830s but did not become systematic until 1877. During these decades there was evidence of rank-and-file dissatisfaction with the Mormon hierarchy's financial privileges. In 1847 Brigham Young told a public meeting: "Be cont[e]nted with your lot and station and stop whining and babbling about the 12, saying that Brigham oppresses the poor and lives off their earning and that you can't see why you can't have some of his good living, and so on. Did Brigham Young ever get anything from you, did you ever help him to any of his fine living, you poor curses, or was it through Brigham's influence that thousands of the poor have been fed?"60 After Young and the apostles spent the next twelve years directing the expanding settlements of the Great Basin, "Erastus Snow spoke Concerning the feelings of many of the people against seeing the Twelve prosper in Temperal things."61


Following discussion of this criticism in February 1859, the First Presidency and apostles restrained their financial activities. For the next five years Salt Lake County's annual assessments showed a steep decline in the wealth of Brigham Young, his counselors, and the apostles. By contrast the assessed wealth of the Presiding Bishop and his counselors initially increased and then only gradually tapered off during the same period. The rank-and-file expected the Presiding Bishopric to have extensive financial activity.62 In fact the pendulum had swung so far that in December 1865 Apostle John Taylor "Prophesyed that the Twelve should be delivered from the bondage of poverty under which they have been weltering for years."63


Although the rate of this financial decline had been equivalent for the First Presidency and apostles, the burden was far less on Brigham Young and his counselors who had massive personal wealth compared to the apostles. In 1859 Young's own property assessments were only slightly below those of the entire church for Salt Lake County. Young's totalled $100,000, while the Trustee-in-Trust's was $102,250.64 In 1860 first counselor Heber C. Kimball "observed that Mormonism had made him all that he was: he was worth $20,000 now; and if he had remained in the States he would have been a poor man to this day."65 Brigham Young estimated his personal wealth at about $600,000 in a legal deposition of 1875. That was three years after he paid $100,000 in "the tithing of his own personal means."66 By contrast, during Young's presidency the Twelve's average assessed wealth reached a high of $6,672 in 1874, and several apostles individually had only $500 to $2,000 in assessed wealth annually from 1860 to Young's death in August 1877.67


At the October 1877 general conference, the hierarchy announced a policy of "reasonable recompense for their services" to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and to the First Presidency, when organized. In John Taylor's view, this was actually a way of stopping the previous abuses in the personal use of tithing funds. "Some of my brethren, as I have learned since the death of President Brigham Young, did have feelings concerning his course," Apostle George Q. Cannon wrote. "It is felt that the funds of the Church have been used with a freedom not warranted by the authority which he held."68Of general authorities still living, Joseph F. Smith wrote in December 1877: "One man, for instance, who has drawn $16,000 per year from the tithing office for his support, has been cut down to 2,000 per year. Thus some of the leaks are plugged up and we hope to be able by and by to build the temple."69 Smith was apparently referring to Brigham's son John W. Young, who served as his father's counselor for thirteen years (first secretly and later with public acknowledgement).


However, Taylor's "reasonable recompense" of 1877 did not cover the needs of the apostles. At an apostles meeting on 3 May 1880, "The question of over running salaries was brought up. Several of the brethren had overdrawn their allowance . . ." They voted to forgive the overdrafts and to increase their annual allowance. In addition, the apostles decided to give an allowance to the Presiding Patriarch in addition to his per-blessing fee.70


In September 1887 this became fixed allotments, which one apostle opposed with the comment: "it was repugnant to the people to have the 12 [apostles] draw a salary."71 In April 1888 the First Council of Seventy also began receiving financial allowances, to which one council member replied: "I would prefer to receive no salary." A "permanent" allowance to members of the First Council of Seventy was not established for another decade.72

[All-American]

Nevertheless, LDS presidents themselves expressed discomfort about using their allowances. When the First Presidency and Twelve discussed the salary system again in 1896, President Wilford Woodruff said that he had not drawn money from the church until after 1877. Apostle Lorenzo Snow, Woodruff's presidential successor, said that despite the allowance system, he had not drawn from church funds for forty years.73 This resistance to making personal use of church funds reached its climax in President Heber J. Grant, who rode public street cars rather than use tithing funds to have an automobile and chauffeur for the First Presidency.74


Despite discomfort over receiving tithing funds for living allowances, a salary system for LDS general authorities continued without significant interruption from 1882 on. As indicated by Joseph F. Smith's 1877 letter and by Wilford Woodruff's diary, the apostles received $2,000 to $2,500 annually during the first five years of the salary system. Then significant financial stratification occurred, with the senior apostle receiving $5,000 annually, apostles of middle seniority $3,000, and junior apostles $2,000. In September 1887 the apostles adopted a uniform compensation, with each receiving $3,000. Although there was not yet a fixed allowance for the First Council of Seventy, in 1888 the Presiding Patriarch's "annuity" increased from $1,000 to $1,250.75


By the turn of the twentieth century, the hierarchy's allowances were stratified by ecclesiastical position and seniority. In 1890 the monthly allowances of the Quorum of the Twelve and Presiding Bishop were identical, with the counselors in the First Presidency receiving $50 more a month and the church president receiving another $100 monthly. By 1907 the monthly allowances were stratified into a six-tiered system: (1) the lowest allowance for junior members of the Seventy, (2) the next higher allowance to mid-level members of the Seventy and the Presiding Patriarch, followed by (3) the eight junior members of the Twelve, (4) the Presiding Bishopric, two senior members of the Seventy, and four senior members of the Twelve, (5) the counselors in the Presidency, and (6) the president of the church. In those 1907 allowances, $100 monthly separated the top two tiers, and only $50 monthly separated each of the lower tiers. By 1932 there were only four strata in the monthly allowance system: (1) the lowest allowance was for counselors to the Presiding Bishop and for the entire Seventy, (2) an extra $50 monthly allotment for the Presiding Bishop, the Presiding Patriarch, and all members of the Twelve, (3) an additional increase of $100 monthly for counselors in the First Presidency, (4) and a $150 monthly bonus for the church president.76David O. McKay's presidency (1951-70) adopted uniform allowances for all general authorities, regardless of quorum or seniority.77


There were also miscellaneous fees which the general authorities collected for ecclesiastical services. Brigham Young charged men "ten dollars for each divorce" or cancellation of sealing, which policy continued until the end of the century.78 In addition, until 1899 the general authorities charged a fee for setting apart all departing missionaries.79


Periodically the Mormon hierarchy has made a significant increase in monthly allowances to general authorities. In 1950, for example, there was a 30-percent increase.80 Nevertheless, in view of the financial empire administered by the LDS general authorities, their compensation from church funds has always been paltry compared to the salaries and perks of corporate America. In 1949 First Presidency counselor J. Reuben Clark wrote that "the General Authorities of the Church get precious little from the tithing of the Church. They are not paid as much as a first-class, stenographic secretary of some of the men who run industry."81 That disparity was probably the reason for the next year's increase in allowances to the general authorities.


For example, as a newly appointed Assistant to the Twelve in 1941, Marion G. Romney found that his church "allowance amounted to less than half of what he was earning from his law practice when he was called as a General Authority."82 Appointed an apostle that same year, Harold B. Lee found that his financial allowance was less than the salary of some staff members at LDS headquarters.83 As was true in the nineteenth-century hierarchy, a significant drop in income and personal wealth occurred when a man accepted the calling of LDS general authority.84


Although not a formal salary, general authorities can also receive significant income from the books they publish. When he published The Way To Perfection in 1931, Joseph Fielding Smith specified that all its future royalties would go to the LDS Genealogical Society. However, he was not as generous with the royalties from his dozens of other books. For example, when President Smith died in July 1972, his royalties from Deseret Book Company totaled $9,636 for the previous six-month period.85 Presiding Bishop (and later apostle) LeGrand Richards set a remarkable example by accepting no royalties for his Marvelous Work and a Wonder which had sold 2 million copies by the time of his death in 1983. However, a president of the LDS church's publishing company has observed that very few general authorities have declined royalties for their books.86 Mormons purchase books written by general authorities primarily because of the church office the author holds, rather than for the book's content. Although many general authorities do not write books, such royalty income is a direct consequence of being an LDS leader.


Speaking of LDS church-owned businesses and stock-portfolio in 1985, First Presidency counselor Gordon B. Hinckley said that "the living allowances given the General Authorities, which are very modest in comparison with executive compensation in industry and the professions, come from this business income and not from the tithing of the people."87 However, tithing was the source of these "living allowances" from the 1830s until the church's corporate success in recent years.


Moreover, President Hinckley's description of the hierarchy's income as "very modest" depends upon one's own concept of wealth. For example, when Joseph Fielding Smith died at age ninety-five in 1972, he had worked nearly all his adult life at LDS headquarters, first as a paid employee in the Historian's Office and then as a general authority with a church living allowance. At his death, President Smith had $245,000 in bank deposits, $120,000 in cash, $120,574 in stocks/bonds, and $10,688 in uncashed checks (including Deseret Book royalties of $9,636). Even twenty-five years after his death, few rank-and-file Mormons have such "modest" amounts of cash and liquid assets available to them in old age.88


The LDS ministry is still a volunteer, lay ministry. In the twentieth century, church offices have become unpaid to a degree they never were in the nineteenth century. Of more than 160,000 ecclesiastical leaders at the beginning of 1996, fewer than 500 were authorized a living allowance from church funds.89 Many of these LDS officials decline to use their authorized allowances.


However, on occasion church presidents have personally benefitted from church finances by simply cancelling their indebtedness to church funds. On 23 April 1834 a revelation ended the Kirtland United Order and distributed its real estate assets among Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, Martin Harris, Newel K. Whitney, and John Johnson. The revelation said, "it is my will that you shall pay all your debts" (D&C 104:78). However, Joseph Smith privately required Whitney to balance "in full without any value recd." the $1,151.31 Whitney had loaned to the prophet, as well as $2,484.22 of the other men's debts to Whitney. Bishop Whitney had to personally absorb this loss "because Joseph said it must be done."90


The next two church presidents did likewise. Three weeks before he died in August 1877, Brigham Young obtained a cancellation of his debts in Ogden, Utah, extending back to 1849.91 Despite the previously stated objections of his own counselor, John Taylor also persuaded the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in 1880 to allow him a $10,000 claim for sugar machinery, which claim Brigham Young had refused since 1853.92


By contrast, Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith did not use their office as church president to cancel their personal indebtedness, yet they allowed tithing funds to serve as a loan pool for prominent Mormons. In a sharply worded report in 1911, the church auditors noted: "If certain members of the Church are entitled to borrow money for private ends, is this not a right of all members, for the same purpose? If this policy is admitted, would it not result in confusion, jealousy, loss and consequent wrong?" The committee observed that "the debtors frequently look upon their obligations as being due to a rich and indulgent relative, to be paid (if at all) at their own convenience." Among the debtors was Apostle Heber J. Grant for a "cash loan of $34,000." In 1913 the committee renewed the subject of church loans to individuals, and commented that "it is not within the purview of the Trustee-in-Trust to make advances of this kind . . . And any loans made on plain notes are legally uncollectible."93


It is important to recognize that general authorities borrowed from the church's general fund because their living allowances were insufficient to meet their needs. In 1910 Apostle Anthony W. Ivins recorded that the following members of the Twelve were in debt: Francis M. Lyman, George Albert Smith, Heber J. Grant, Rudger Clawson, Hyrum M. Smith, George F. Richards, and David O. McKay.94Grant was the most candid about his apostolic indebtedness: "A president of the stake begged and pleaded with me to quit paying tithing. He said I did not owe any tithing until I got out of debt. Would not that have been a fine record for a man who now stands as president of the Church, not to have paid tithing for thirty-two years?"95


Many general authorities repaid their debts after long years of effort, while others died in debt. On the other hand, some chose to declare legal bankruptcy. In 1842 Joseph Smith, his counselor Sidney Rigdon, Presiding Patriarch Hyrum Smith, and Presiding bishop-designate Vinson Knight sought relief from their indebtedness by filing for bankruptcy.96 Seventy's president J. Golden Kimball was the next current general authority who filed for bankruptcy. In 1899 he had $11,126 in debts but only $2,031 in assets.97 By 1902 the First Presidency was unwilling for a member of the Presidency or Twelve to declare public bankruptcy, and Apostle Reed Smoot quietly persuaded the creditors of John W. Taylor to settle the apostle's $140,000 debts at ten cents on the dollar.98


On 27 December 1919 recently sustained Heber J. Grant obtained the approval of his counselors to accept $30,000 worth of his stock (at par) in the Utah-Implement Vehicle Company to cancel loans he received as an apostle from the Trustee-in-Trust.99 However, accepting stock to cancel personal loans caused enormous losses to the church during Grant's administration. In 1930 first counselor Anthony W. Ivins computed that the church lost $900,000 in personal loans to Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley. Upon his appointment as second counselor in the First Presidency in 1925, Nibley had used stocks and bonds to repay his indebtedness to the church.100

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[jay santos]

Originally Posted by All-American

General Authorities living expenses are not paid by tithing dollars. They receive some income from investments and businesses managed by the church-- I don't know the numbers, but I'd be willing to bet it is signicantly less than 500k, and likely not even 6 digits. Most general authorities were well established businessmen before receiving their calls.

This sounds like the hoops people go through to claim BYU football receives no tithing money. It's just accounting tricks.

P.S. I believe GA's should and do live well. This subject doesn't interest me at all.

[MikeWaters]

Interesting article. I had no idea that Bishops and Stake Presidents collected a very significant portion of tithing for their own salaries in years gone by.

It sounds like the policy has veered wildly over the years. What was permitted at times, would lead to excommunication at other times.

Sounds like Brigham Young went beyond the pale in terms of his wealth compared to everyone else.

I guess one question I have is whether transparency is more or less now than in decades past.

[MikeWaters]

Also, paying stake presidents and bishops retirement is interesting.

perhaps the role of Bishop back in 1870 was different then than now, in that it required much more time?

[MikeWaters]

One thing I don't get is general authorities comparing themselves to CEOs and corporate executives. Unless that is how they view themselves.

To me it is like saying "I may make more money than a lot of folks, but I don't make more than almost every professional athlete."

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

One thing I don't get is general authorities comparing themselves to CEOs and corporate executives. Unless that is how they view themselves.

To me it is like saying "I may make more money than a lot of folks, but I don't make more than almost every professional athlete."

Here's how I take it.

Given the qualifications of the GAs and their past earnings, they are sacrificing much and what is paid to them pails in comparison to what they would be paid and were paid on the open market.

I recognize that the poor widown struggle can't seem to identify with a guy receiving a six figure stipend, and Brigham Young's practices cast a different light upon how we viewed things.

[All-American]

One other one. A november 1983 Wall Street Journal stated that a seventy earned $40,000. No comment on what that means for an apostle, whether it be more or less.