The Reality of Clergy Compensation
Hello, Virginia United Methodists. I am a provisional deacon working for the Virginia United Methodist Foundation (VAUMF). I work three-quarter time for the Foundation as a service advisor and one-quarter time as an associate pastor at a church in northern Virginia.
I recently had the privilege of serving on the Just Compensation Task Force (JCTF), which examined clergy compensation in the Virginia Annual Conference. This team only considered the salaries of full-time pastors, so none of their findings apply to me since my Foundation work is in an extension capacity and not a pastoral role.
To prepare for this JCTF role, I researched how clergy are compensated. Why do I think this is worth sharing? Because if you are reading this, you probably belong to a UMC in Virginia with one or more pastors. There are a few things I think we should all know about clergy compensation because church members are the ones who pay their pastors.
First, the way clergy are taxed is somewhat mind-boggling. They are considered both as employees and self-employed for tax purposes. First, clergy are considered employees whose income tax is withheld from each paycheck. However, in terms of the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) – the tax that goes toward Social Security (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%) – pastors are treated as self-employed. Regular employees pay this 7.65% tax, and their employers pay a matching 7.65%. Self-employed people pay the entire 15.3%. Since pastors are considered self-employed for FICA purposes, they pay the full 15.3% in quarterly payments.
So again, clergy are considered both employees and self-employed for tax purposes for their single job. I was in my sixties when I was called to ministry as a financial counselor. I thought I understood taxes but found this to be quite confusing.
Cost-of-Living Increases
I also discovered some pastors have not received a pay raise since before COVID because their churches have not paid full apportionments. As you may remember, in the period since COVID, especially 2021 and 2022, our economy experienced significant inflation. Since 2019, Social Security recipients, military retirees and government employees who retired under the old Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) have received over 22% in cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increases. I was shocked to learn of some pastors not receiving pay increases, especially since they do not always have final say over whether a church pays apportionments. In one case, the pastor has a family and lives in a small town with limited employment opportunities for the spouse. And yet that pastor’s salary has remained the same since 2019.
Minimum Compensation Schedule
That was just what I learned before formally beginning my time on the JCTF task force. Once onboard, I learned about the 2025-approved minimum compensation schedule. Certainly, some pastors, especially in bigger churches, in bigger towns, earn a lot more than this. However, there are full-time pastors who actually get paid these amounts: The 2025 schedule lists:
- $40,200 for local pastors
- $42,700 for provisional-member pastors and associate-member pastors
- $47,400 for fully-ordained pastors.
To put this into perspective, the federal poverty level for a family of four in the lower 48 states is $32,150. Additionally, after accounting for time in service and location, there is a gender gap. Women, on average, make less than men. Ethnicity gaps also emerged. I found this troubling, as God doesn’t care about nor treat differently based on race, color, gender or ethnicity. Why would we when it comes to pastor pay? Moreover, the Virginia Annual Conference has the second-lowest salaries in the Southeastern Jurisdiction, according to a Wespath study.
What does all this tell us? When people are called to serve God, they aren’t doing it to get rich. It also means more than a few are struggling financially. One proposal to address this is to set up a system that is gender- and race-neutral and instead based on years of service and qualifications (education and status, i.e., local-licensed, provisional, associate member and fully-ordained). Included would be location factors to account for high cost-of-living areas, and churches could certainly decide to pay more than the schedule sets.
Hopefully, this sheds some light on how your pastor is paid. It was certainly eye-opening for me. If you have questions, you can read the detailed report in the Book of Reports from the 2025 Annual Conference. Your church office may have a copy, or you can find it here. The work of the Just Compensation Task Force will continue in a new way under the leadership of the director of belonging and advocacy, the Rev. Lan Wilson.
Please prayerfully consider how we should move ahead to ensure our pastors can focus more on carrying out the Church’s mission and spend less time worrying about making it on a limited budget.
By the Rev. Brad Duty
Foundation Services Advisor & Provisional Deacon
Images
Towfiqu Barbhuiya & Jon Tyson, courtesy of Unsplash
