Dorn's Unusual Rants - Sordland's Presidential Salary is Completely Insane

Hello everyone, I am Dorn the Suzerain Nerd

The annual presidential salary in Sordland is canonically 1,000,000 Ren according to Anton Rayne's first meeting with Tusk. This is such an obscene amount of money that it easily makes Sordland's president one of the highest paid politicians in all of Merkopa.

The Holsord Post states that the Workers Rights Act sets a minimum wage of 2.5 Ren per hour with a maximum work time of 60 hours per week. Assuming the average laborer now works 40 hours every week for 50 weeks out of the year, allowing two weeks for unpaid vacation, a normal everyday Sord makes 5000 Ren each year, and an overworked person earns 7500 Ren annually (see image 2 for source).^(\[)[^(1)](https://thispenguincanfly.github.io/merkopanpressarchive/)^(\])

Now, let's provide some context for this using real life statistics. During his first term, Harry Truman earned $75,000 yearly, or $6,250 monthly, from 1945 to 1949 according to the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum.^(\[)[^(2)](https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/federal-record/records-general-accounting-office-presidential-pay-records-record-group-411)^(\]) Around the same time, the University of Missouri states that the median income of white families was slightly over $3,000 dollars, with white men earning on average over $2,500 in 1946 (see image 3 for details), though the average was disturbingly almost half for non-white workers.^(\[)[^(3)](https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1940-1949)^(\]\[)[^(4)](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl0j82&seq=356)^(\]) This means that Truman earned about 25 times the yearly wage of a white family during his first term. Anton Rayne makes ***Eight*** times that value, earning a whopping ***Two Hundred*** times the average Sord's yearly salary even after setting a proper minimum wage and working hours.

With some statistics to provide a general comparison, we can now put things into perspective. Soll, during his time in office, made 20,000,000 Ren; over 4,000 years worth of a normal person's yearly wages (and likely significantly more as wages were probably much lower during his terms). A fully employed family including a husband, wife, and two working-age children, would have to work a full millennium to break even. At approximately 20,000 Ren weekly, Anton Rayne earns more in a week than a normal person at 5,000 Ren yearly did across his entire first term.

Lastly, keep in mind that all numbers used here are likely skewed as workers were paid less on average before the WRA is signed. For as bad as the Presidential salary seems just by the available statistics, it's actually much worse. No wonder the Radical doesn't trust us, even a corruption-free president makes a disgusting amount of cash on his own.

^(\[)[^(1)](https://thispenguincanfly.github.io/merkopanpressarchive/)^(\]) Credit to [Merkopan Press Archives](https://thispenguincanfly.github.io/merkopanpressarchive/) for providing the article on the Workers Rights Bill

^(\[)[^(2)](https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/federal-record/records-general-accounting-office-presidential-pay-records-record-group-411)^(\]) [Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum](https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/federal-record/records-general-accounting-office-presidential-pay-records-record-group-411)

^(\[)[^(3)](https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1940-1949)^(\]) [University of Missouri](https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1940-1949)

^(\[)[^(4)](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl0j82&seq=356)^(\]) [Statistical Abstract of Median Money Income From 1947 to 1962](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hl0j82&seq=356)

I am Dorn the Suzerain Nerd, and this is an Unusual Rant by Dorn