Committee Objects to Clergy Salary Rise
Diocesan Press Service. May 21, 1970 [87-10]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- A special committee of Executive Council has found serious objections to a recommendation that all clergy salaries of the Episcopal Church be raised "across the board" by $2,400 a year.
The proposal was presented to the Executive Council at its May meeting by a Clergy Salary Study Committee, chairmanned by the Rt. Rev. Robert M. Hatch, Bishop of Western Massachusetts.
"We seriously question the recommendation," the Rt. Rev. David E. Richards told Council members in responding to the report. "It will create a serious morale problem among the clergy who already know they are underpaid. The report may give the impression that they are worse off than they thought."
He also said that his committee questioned what was otherwise "a fine report" for its failure to take into consideration differences among various geographical areas.
"It has to be done Diocese by Diocese, and this is a particularly serious problem in overseas jurisdictions," he said.
Bishop Richards proposed a "process of salary review in every Diocese and Missionary District" to help correct salary inequities and suggested a system similar to one used in the Diocese of Michigan which provides a base salary, annual increases and cost of living increases.
"Church programs," he said, "should not be subsidized by inadequate salaries. "
Comparing the situation of the average Episcopalian minister to that of "peonage, " the Hatch committee report said that "this may be too harsh a word, but it seems appropriate to the present situation. "
The committee said the median cash stipend for parochial clergy in 1967, the year on which the study was based, was $6,000 a year. The median total remuneration, including housing and utilities provided by the parish, came to $7,560.
Automobile allowances were not considered in the study, and it was pointed out in the report that "most clergymen subsidize their ministry out of their cash salary because of inadequate reimbursement for professionally incurred automobile expenses," an average annual net loss of $838.
A comparison with other professional categories showed that pay for Episcopalian clergymen fell well below the average salary of attorneys, chemists, engineers, chief accountants, personnel directors, managers of office services and accountants.
"The median total income for parochial clergy rates far below that of any comparable profession or that of many blue-collar occupations," the report said. "Many clergy wives earn a portion of the family income, and more men are leaving the parochial ministry for financial reasons than at any time since the Great Depression."
The salary study also included a consideration of the reasons why clergy salaries are low, and the report cited three main factors:
1. The clergyman is assumed to be "above the law of the market place" and being "called by God" is expected to function whether paid or not.
2. Failure of the Church to move from a "town economy" to an "impersonal mass economy." Salary inequities under the old system, the report said, were oftentimes offset through special financial help from the Bishop, free medical care, "missionary barrels and Thanksgiving baskets."
3. Clergy salaries are low because many congregations cannot afford to raise salaries, particularly in an inflationary period.
The general pay increase of $2,400 a year recommended for all "deacons, parochial priests, ecclesiastically employed non-parochial priests and Bishops, " was seen in the report as the most equitable way to correct injustices in salaries now paid. It would raise the median and would provide greater percentage increases for those receiving lower salaries.
The report also acknowledged that "the question of clergy salary is not the key issue in the life and organization of the Episcopal Church," but, it said, "adequate salary is the key to maintenance of the structure while necessary changes are made, and it certainly is a matter of distributive justice to the men now employed in the system. "
To help accomplish these changes the committee recommended two additional measures to be taken by the Church:
1. Full support by the Episcopal Church of its newly-organized Clergy Deployment Office in its effort to obtain job descriptions and job evaluations for all active clergymen and "to use effectively such evaluations in a fairer, more thorough deployment system."
2. A Church-wide study of the problems of "non viable congregations and the development of new forms of ministries."
In low-budget congregations the committee suggested a study of a number of possible solutions, including subsidies, yoked parishes, mergers, ecumenical congregations, increased giving, the use of self-supporting clergy and in extreme cases shutting down of parishes.