Pay Levels Of World Leaders In Perspective

When it comes to salary levels among world leaders, there is tremendous variation across the globe. Nobody earns as much as Singapore's prime minister, though. Lee Hsien Loong earned $2,856,930 from 2008 to 2012 before public disquiet prompted him to take a 28 percent paycut. In 2015, his annual salary still amounts to $1.7 million U.S. dollars - that's enough to pay the combined annual wage of of the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom combined.

U.S. President Barack Obama earns $400,000 every year, quite a distance short of Lee Hsien Loong but still very high by international standards. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on $260,000 while Angela Merkel follows with $234,400. Russian President Vladmir Putin's annual salary amounts to $136,000. That's still substantially more than Xi Jinping, China's leader. He earns just $22,000 every year.