Silver Pie wrote: ↑April 14th, 2017, 6:57 pm
Finrock wrote: ↑April 13th, 2017, 3:18 pm
Those scriptures are not limited to just leaders. If those scriptures are to be applied, it should be applied as is written. They would apply to all that are needy and all laborers in Zion.
-Finrock
I tend to agree. It says priests, not prophets, nor apostles. Anyone who is at least a priest.
Priests back then were church leaders, not our current priests.
Found this:
http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/throug ... more-12291
An excerpt:
" Before discussing several important findings of Quinn’s Chapter 1, it is necessary to look at a critical aspect of methodology he constantly uses throughout the book’s narrative, footnotes, and appendices. In the same introductory paragraph setting out his objectives for Volume 3, Quinn describes this methodology:
To make these matters [allowances, tithing, expenditures, and all nominal values] more understandable to twenty first century readers, this volume often states what the equivalent of US dollars in the nineteenth century would be in terms of purchasing power in 2010, the final year of this book’s emphasis. For example, even trained historians might currently think that an annual income of $10,000 was modest for the year 1899, when it was actually equivalent to $271,000 in 2010. Rather than my own estimates of comparative worth, the financial equivalents are derived from the Consumer Price Index on the internet. (2)
Therefore, all dollar amounts in 2010 are stated both in terms of the value for that earlier year and also their worth in purchasing power in 2010 prices. Two comments:
First, a kudo: Quinn uses internet adjustments provided by a respected economic historian, Samuel H. Williamson.3 There is no better source, and Quinn deserves credit for recognizing and using that source.
Second, Quinn uses Williamson’s Consumer PRICE Index (CPI) exclusively to adjust all nominal values. Surely far better than no adjustment at all. However, one needs to understand what the CPI measures. His example of an 1899 income of $10,000 does not translate into an income of $271,000 in 2010. Instead, the CPI adjustment attempts to estimate what an income of $10,000 in 1899 could buy as a given bundle of consumer goods in 2010. For that reason, Williamson proposes seven different measures for comparing prices vs. wages vs. income over time. Thus, instead of comparing equivalent dollars needed to “purchase a bundle of consumer goods” between any two years, Quinn could have used different indices comparing wages or income over time. Comparing the General Authorities’ “living allowance” to [Page 124]Williamson’s Labor Value Index or Income Value Index might have given a more comparable measure of worth. On the other hand, it should be noted that by using the CPI, whether or not Quinn intended, he was consistently “understating” the differences between early income values compared to modern equivalents. And, since his purpose was to show how large the earlier living allowances were when compared to present values, underestimating was the proper procedure.
Quinn finds several surprises in the income “living allowances” from Chapter 1. First, compared to employment options outside of church service, Quinn appraises these allowances for those devoting full time to Church administration to be modest. He reports the following annual allowances for the president of the Church: $5,000 from 1877 to 1907 (10, 13); $7,800 from 1932 to 1946 (14); $6,000 in 1947 (14); $7,800 in 1951; $10,260 in 1973 (34); $89,325 in 1999; $116,400 in 2013; and $120,000 in 2014 (36).
Second, the living allowances for General Authorities have not kept pace with inflation over most decades nor during the entire 137 year period. Shortly after President Brigham Young’s death, the living allowance for the president, as reported above, was lowered to $5,000 per year and remained at that level until 1907. In real purchasing power dollars, the $5,000 allowance during the period 1877‒1907 would be worth more than the today’s allowance of $120,000. In between those endpoints, inflation was playing havoc with the real value of these allowances. The $7,800 in 1951 would buy about $65,000 of consumer goods in 2010 dollars, and the 1973 allowance of $10,000 only $50,377 (34). What these numbers show is the effect of having an administratively set salary that is not indexed to the rate of inflation. The allowance fell most rapidly in real value during the inflationary periods of 1907‒1917, after WW I, again after WW II, and during the inflation of the 1970s.
Third, Quinn finds it “stunning” that General Authorities’ allowances lag behind those of professional administrators working for the church — some earn as much as double the allowances of General Authorities (36). Quinn concludes:
There are no current measures for salaries of top administrators in the LDS bureaucracy at Salt Lake City, nor for CEOs of the church’s for-profit businesses. Still, the available data show that “salaries” of all general authorities in the twenty-first century could be less than half of what some rank-and-file employees received within the international church over which those “prophets, seers, and revelators“ presided. (37)
[Page 125]A comparison of the living allowance for the President and General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the salaries of executive officers of other churches was reported in the Chicago Tribune for 1992.4 The closest year for comparison is the living allowance for the LDS Church President for 1999 at $89,325. Thus, seven or eight years previous, compensation for the Bishop of the Episcopal Church was $160,000; President of the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, $120,000; President of the United Church of Christ $89,000; while the United Methodist Church “has no official designated as a national leader, but each of the 50 regional bishops earns $70,000 and is provided housing.”5 Officials of the Evangelical Lutheran Church “would not reveal the exact salary” of their bishop, but stated that it was “between $61,200 and $105,500.” And leaders of the Presbyterian Church are “supposed to earn no more than four times what janitors and other workers at the bottom of the pay scale earn.”6
A similar comparison can be made with many of America’s charitable organizations.7 In 2014, when the LDS President was receiving $120,000 as a living allowance, Charity Watch, Charity Navigator, and Forbes announced that of the 100 largest charities, “18 reported paying some employees more than $1 million.”8 The highest salaried chief executive [Page 126]represented the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, who was paid $4,195,252. The annual salary of the CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was $2,555,131, and the National President of the Boy Scouts of America $1,351,724 (2015).9 A similar list by a Christian blog site, Temple Stream, lists the CEO’s salary for the nation’s largest charity, United Way Worldwide, with annual donations of almost $3.708 billion, at $1,166,454 (2015).10
The conclusion? Many heads of America’s churches are paid comparable or higher compensation than that received by LDS Church leaders, and executives of America’s largest charitable organizations are paid 10 to 20 times the living allowance of the President of the LDS Church. It should be noted that the living allowance from the Church does not include all compensation, which might also include benefits, any allowances for housing or automobiles, and income from books or directorships. But the same is often true for reported income of other churches and salaries of America’s largest charities."
