US Wants UN Salaries Cut, but D.C. Is Singing to the Wrong Choir : Shared by Lou Mendez

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US Wants UN Salaries Cut, but D.C. Is Singing to the Wrong Choir

Damilola Banjo – PassBlue
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Summary
The Trump administration has renewed its demand for sharp reductions in UN staff pay and benefits, arguing that UN employees “out-earn” civil servants in every member state.

U.S. envoy Jeff Bartos told the General Assembly’s budget committee that staff compensation—70 percent of the UN’s regular budget—must be “brought into line with common sense benchmarks.” But experts note that pay is set by the independent International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), limiting Washington’s leverage.

The salary issue comes amid UN Secretary-General António Guterres’s broader reform drive to trim costs and reduce staff by up to 20 percent, as the UN faces a $450 million deficit and $1.5 billion in unpaid U.S. dues. Analysts say only the General Assembly, acting on ICSC recommendations, can change remuneration rules, which are pegged to U.S. federal pay under the Noblemaire principle. Past reviews have found UN salaries lower than U.S. equivalents when total compensation and overseas costs are included.

Critics describe Washington’s push as ideological rather than fiscal, part of an effort to weaken multilateral institutions. Former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Jordan Ryan called it “an attack on global expertise framed as fiscal common sense.”

Quotes
“UN staff currently out-earn their civil service counterparts in every Member State, including the United States, by wide margins on base salary alone.” – Jeff Bartos, U.S. envoy for UN management and reform
“Even if the U.S. can’t directly affect these compensation determinations, it can use its bully pulpit.” – Chris Lu, former U.S. ambassador for UN management

“The administration seeks to recast cooperation itself as a form of overreach.” – Jordan Ryan, former UN assistant secretary-general.

Editor's note: The ICSC takes the U.S. civil service pay scale (specifically for the U.S. federal civil service serving in Washington DC at the professional and managerial levels) as a baseline for comparison. It then applies an 'expatriate differential' between 10 and 20 % to reflect the international and mobile nature of UN recruitment and employment. So when critics say UN pay is “based on the U.S. scale plus 10–20%,” that’s technically correct — but it ignores that the UN’s benchmark is a global expatriate workforce, not domestic U.S. civil servants.

For the US argument for reducing UN salaries see: UN Budget Restraint Requires Reduction in UN Salaries - American Enterprise Institute