The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1910-10-12
MANY MINISTERS
ARE UNDERPA|D
The Average Salary in
America is S6o3,
Out SOME RECEIVE ONLY Sill
Entering the Ministry Seems
to Sometimes Mean a
Life # Poverty.
SOME STARTLING FIGURES


If one were asked what ministers
IN America receive the lowest sala-
iries he would probably hazard IA
guess that they were the ministers
of Baptist or Methodist colored con-
gregations in the Southland be
wrong. The average of all Christian
ministers in America is $663 a year,
and the ministers who, giving their
time to e G work, not earning mon
ey for labor outside OF the ministry.
receive least per year, are not South
Aern ministers, and they labor some
of them, in the North and West
In continental United States the
two classes of ministers who receive
the lowest annual salaries are the
Congregational Methodist, who aver
age but $111, and the Separate Bap-
fist, who get little more per year,
but not much, viz, 1921. Congrega-
tional Methodists had their rise in
have extended until ministers OF
their body are laboring in New Jer-
sey and Pennsylvania, in Missouri,
Tennessee and Texas, and seven 9TH
er States. They hold Methodist doc
tfines. but did nor Ike Methodist
policy, and so adopted the Congrega-
tkonalcone. Hence the name. There
are 324 ministers, serving about 49,
900 members, and they earn, all OF
them together, the large total of
$35,964 a year.
Separate Baptists were once Eng
1ish, but they came to New England
$50 years ago, and later found their
way to the West and Southwest.
There are only about 5000 of them,
with 100 ministers. Their congre,'a-
tiUns are in Indiana and Illinois,
Kentucky and Tennessee. Their av-
esVge salary being only 1921 a year,
the whole 100 ministers receive but
$12, 100.
The salaries of ministers of all
names and grades range from 81, 223.
a year in cities of 100000 popula-
ton and over, down to 81 100 in CT
ties of 100000 and over; 81, O63 in
cities of $4,000 and over. 1912 i'm
cities of $4,000 and over and $573
outside of all cities. These figures
are for continental United States
Regular Baptist and Methodist sal
aries are not so bad, granting that
any ministerial salaries are adequate,
and they average we'll with others,
Protestant Episcopal among them.
The highest of all, $1,653, is re-
ceived by Unitarian ministers, but
Congregational, Lutheran and others
run we'll with these figures, some of
them going below $1,100 to 1900.
When entering any of the smaller
bodies ministers seem to enter upon
lives of greatest poverty IL they are
expected to exist upon sums reported
by them as having been received. For
example, leaving out entirely the col
OTeO ministers as not DelHs ldlT
tests, and taking white ministers
only, Methodist Protestant ministers
receive on an average only $434 a
year. This church is fairly large, as
the smaller bodies run, and its con-
gregations are in Pennsylvania. Del
aware, Maryland and the middle
West. The Wesleyan Methodist
Connection ministers receive only
1911 a year. These congregations
are in Vermont, New York, Penn
sylvania and in most of the States of
the West and Southwest.
Free Methodist churches pay their
ministers only 1870 a year, and their
congregations are scattered over
New England, the Middle States, the
West and the South. When congre-
cations are in the cities, their sala-
ries run up to $3.50 and 5000, but
in the average outside of all princi-
pal cities the salary is only $34S.
The white Baptists of the South
pay their ministers very low salaries,
the average being only 1867, with
low water mark of 1894 outside of
the principal cities. In the large
Southern cities ministers receive as