A number of top executives in large businesses and governments have worked for a one-dollar salary. One-dollar salaries are used in situations where an executive wishes to work without direct compensation, but for legal reasons must receive a payment above zero, so as to distinguish them from a

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

. The concept first emerged in the early 1900s, where various leaders of industry in the United States offered their services to the government during times of war. Later, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, many business executives began accepting one-dollar salaries—often in the case of struggling companies or startups—with the potential for further indirect earnings as the result of their ownership of

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a compan ...

Dollar-a-year men

In the early-to-mid-20th century, "dollar-a-year men" were business and government executives who helped the government mobilize and manage American industry during periods of war, notably

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

. U.S. law forbids the government from accepting the services of unpaid volunteers. Those employed by the government had to be paid a nominal salary, and the salary establishes their legal relationship as employees of the government. During World War I, about 1,000 such people were employed by the United States. While they received only a dollar in salary from the government, most executives had their salaries paid by the companies. The first known such employee was

Gifford Pinchot Gifford Pinchot (August 11, 1865October 4, 1946) was an American forester and politician. He served as the fourth chief of the U.S. Division of Forestry, as the first head of the United States Forest Service, and as the 28th governor of Pennsy ...

, working for Theodore Roosevelt. After Pinchot, the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

employed several dollar-a-year men. On June 19, 1933,

Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of th ...

, Secretary of Labor appointed a five-member Labor Advisory Board, of whom two members came from the

Amalgamated Clothing Workers Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA) was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Indus ...

union, of whom one,

Sidney Hillman Sidney Hillman (March 23, 1887 – July 10, 1946) was an American labor leader. He was the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor' ...

, was a dollar-a-year man. Progressive lawyer Max Lowenthal was a dollar-a-year man as legal counsel on various congressional committees, befriended U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, and wound up as a dollar-a-year man in President Truman's cabinet.

World War I

Bernard Baruch Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier and statesman. After amassing a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, he impressed President Woodrow Wilson by managing the nation's economic mobilization in W ...

was the first businessman employed for a one-dollar salary. World War I, the Advisory Commission to the

Council of National Defense The Council of National Defense was a United States organization formed during World War I to coordinate resources and industry in support of the war effort, including the coordination of transportation, industrial and farm production, financial ...

was staffed largely by dollar-a-year men, including Bernard Baruch, Robert S. Brookings, and

Herbert Bayard Swope Herbert Bayard Swope Sr. (; January 5, 1882 – June 20, 1958) was an American editor, journalist and intimate of the Algonquin Round Table. Swope spent most of his career at the ''New York World.'' He was the first and three-time recipient of t ...

Interwar

Massachusetts Governor

Alvan T. Fuller Alvan Tufts Fuller (February 27, 1878 – April 30, 1958) was an American businessman, politician, art collector, and philanthropist from Massachusetts. He opened one of the first automobile dealerships in Massachusetts, which in 1920 was recogniz ...

, wealthy in his own right, served in several government positions on such terms.

New Deal and World War II

Kentucky's Ashland Oil and Refining Company founder and CEO,

Paul G. Blazer Paul Garrett Blazer (September 19, 1890 – December 9, 1966) was President and CEO of Ashland Oil and Refining Company ( Ashland, Inc.) located in Ashland, Kentucky. Early life Blazer was born on September 19, 1890, in New Boston, Illinois to P ...

(1890–1966), served twice as a government salaried dollar-a-year man: from 1933 to 1935 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate " cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governm ...

on the Code of Fair Competition for the Petroleum Industry as Chairman of the Blazer Committee and a second time during World War II as Chairman of District II Refining for President Roosevelt's Petroleum Administration of War. During World War II, socialite

Doris Duke Doris Duke (November 22, 1912 – October 28, 1993) was an American billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, art collector, horticulturalist, and socialite. She was often called "the richest girl in the world". Her great wealth, luxurious l ...

worked in a canteen for U.S. sailors in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

at such a salary. In Canada during

, C. D. Howe, Canada's "

Minister of Everything Clarence Decatur Howe, (15 January 1886 – 31 December 1960) was an American-born Canadian engineer, businessman and Liberal Party politician. Howe served as a cabinet minister in the governments of prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie ...

", created a rearmament program using "dollar-a-year men". An example was John Wilson McConnell, the owner and publisher of the ''

Montreal Star ''The Montreal Star'' was an English-language Canadian newspaper published in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It closed in 1979 in the wake of an eight-month pressmen's strike. It was Canada's largest newspaper until the 1950s and remained the domina ...

'', who was appointed Director of Licences for the Wartime Trade Board, a position for which he served for free. Others include

E. P. Taylor Edward Plunket Taylor, CMG (January 29, 1901 – May 14, 1989) was a Canadian business tycoon, investor and philanthropist. He was a famous breeder of Thoroughbred race horses, and a major force behind the evolution of the Canadian horse-racin ...

and

Austin Cotterell Taylor Major Austin Cotterell Taylor, CBE (January 17, 1889 – November 1, 1965) was a Canadian mining executive and developer, financier, and philanthropist in developing thoroughbred horse racing in British Columbia. Background Born in East York, ...

Recent examples

Some recent one-dollar salary earners worked in government as well, most notably former California governor

Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (born July 30, 1947) is an Austrian and American actor, film producer, businessman, retired professional bodybuilder and politician who served as the 38th governor of California between 2003 and 2011. ''Time'' ...

, former Massachusetts governor

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...

, and former New York City mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a c ...

. After promising to take only a dollar a year in November 2016, former U.S. President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

donated the first three months of his salary to the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

and stated plans to donate all of his salary during the term. Since then, President Trump donated his salary to various Federal Departments, fulfilling his campaign promise to do so. In 2015, then 15-year-old Corbin Duncan petitioned the Australian Prime Minister to take up a $1 salary. The petition was unsuccessful but gained international media coverage.

Instances of alternative compensation

While many executives who take a one-dollar salary also choose not to take any other forms of compensation, a number earn millions more in bonuses and/or other forms of compensation. For example, in 2010–11

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ...

's founder and CEO

Larry Ellison Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology ...

made only $1 in salary, but earned over $77 million in other forms of compensation. In some cases, in lieu of a salary, the executives receive

stock option In finance, an option is a contract which conveys to its owner, the ''holder'', the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a specific quantity of an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified d ...

s. In the United States, this approach impacts personal tax liability, because although stock and option grants are taxed at federal income rates, they may be exempt from some portion of

payroll tax Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees, and are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the em ...

es (typically 7.65%) used to fund

Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

and Medicare. Executives argue that remuneration through stock instead of salary ties management performance to their financial benefits. The assumption is that stock prices will reflect the actual value of a company, which reflect the management performance of the company. Detractors argue that this incentive may drive short-term planning over long-term planning.

Notable one-dollar salary earners

The following people have been employed for annual salaries of one dollar: *

(former

Governor of California The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, t ...

) *

Darren Entwistle Darren Entwistle (born 1962) is a Canadian businessman. He is currently the president and chief executive officer of TELUS, a Canadian telecommunications company. Early life Born in Montreal, Quebec, Entwistle received a Bachelor of Economics ...

(

TELUS Telus Communications Inc. (TCI) is the wholly owned principal subsidiary of Telus Corporation, a Telecommunications in Canada, Canadian national telecommunications company that provides a wide range of telecommunications products and services ...

) *

David Filo David Robert Filo (born April 20, 1966) is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder of Yahoo! with Jerry Yang. His Filo Server Program, written in the C programming language, was the server-side software used to dynamically serve v ...

(

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Mana ...

) *

David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...

(former

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern p ...

) *

(former

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

) *

Edward Lampert Edward Scott Lampert (born July 19, 1962) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the former CEO and chairman of Sears Holdings (SHLD), founder of Transform Holdco LLC, and founder, chairman, and CEO of ESL Investments. Until May 2007, he ...

(

Sears Holdings Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20t ...

) *

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The B ...

( Tesla Motors,

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal o ...

) *

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and software engineer known for being the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, executive chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 2 ...

(

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

) * Evan Spiegel ( Snap) * F. Thomson Leighton ( Akamai) *

Henry Samueli Henry Samueli (born September 20, 1954) is an American businessman, engineer, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder of Broadcom Corporation, owner of the National Hockey League's Anaheim Ducks, and a prominent philanthropist in the Orange Co ...

(

Broadcom Corporation Broadcom Corporation is an American fabless semiconductor company that makes products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies in 2016 and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the merged ...

) *

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gre ...

(former President of the United States) *

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, Inc., the developer of the Squa ...

(

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

) *

Jan Koum Jan Koum ( ua, link=yes, Ян Кум; born Yan Borysovych Kum, ua, Ян Борисович Кум, on February 24, 1976) is a Ukrainian-American billionaire businessman and computer engineer. He is the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, a ...

(

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows use ...

) *

Jeremy Stoppelman Jeremy Stoppelman (born November 10, 1977) is an American business executive. He is the CEO of Yelp, which he co-founded in 2004. Stoppelman obtained a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champai ...

(

Yelp Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San F ...

) *

Jerry Yang Jerry Chih-Yuan Yang (born November 6, 1968) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire computer programmer, internet entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo! Inc. As of February 2022, Yang has a net worth ...

(

) * John F. Kennedy (former

) * John Mackey (

Whole Foods Market Whole Foods Market IP, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon, is an upscale American multinational supermarket chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, which sells products free from hydrogenated fats and artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. A ...

) *

Jon Corzine Jon Stevens Corzine ( ; born January 1, 1947) is an American financial executive and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey from 2001 to 2006 and the 54th governor of New Jersey from 2006 to 2010. Corzine ran fo ...

(former

Governor of New Jersey The governor of New Jersey is the head of government of New Jersey. The office of governor is an elected position with a four-year term. There is a two consecutive term term limit, with no limitation on non-consecutive terms. The official r ...

) *

(

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

) *

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unti ...

(

Alphabet Inc. Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California. It was created through a restructuring of Google on October 2, 2015, and became the parent company of Google and se ...

) *

Lee Iacocca Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca ( ; October 15, 1924 – July 2, 2019) was an American automobile executive best known for the development of the Ford Mustang, Continental Mark III, and Ford Pinto cars while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, a ...

(

Chrysler Corporation Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automotiv ...

) *

Mark Pincus Mark Jonathan Pincus (born February 13, 1966) is an American Internet entrepreneur known as the founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company. Pincus also founded the startups Freeloader, Inc., Tribe Networks, and Support.com. Pincus served as ...

(

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

) *

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), of ...

(

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

) *

Meg Whitman Margaret Cushing Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is the US ambassador to Kenya, an American business executive and former gubernatorial candidate for California. She is a board member of Procter & Gamble and General Motors. Whitman was previously ...

(

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

) * N. R. Narayana Murthy (

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Bangalore. Infosys is ...

) N. R. Narayana Murthy *

Richard Fairbank Richard Dana Fairbank (born September 18, 1950) is an American billionaire businessman who founded Capital One with Nigel Morris in 1988. He previously served on the board of directors of MasterCard International from 2004 through 2006. He is ...

( Capital One Financial) *

Richard Hayne Richard Hayne (born May 26, 1947) is the president and CEO of Urban Outfitters, an American chain of clothing retailers. Hayne has served as chairman and president since 1976. In 2012, he became CEO following the retirement of Glen Senk. According ...

(

Urban Outfitters Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN) is a multinational lifestyle retail corporation headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Operating in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, select Western European countries, Poland the United Arab Emirates, K ...

) *

Richard Riordan Richard Joseph Riordan (born May 1, 1930) is an American investment banker, businessman, lawyer, and former Republican politician who was the 39th Mayor of Los Angeles, from 1993 to 2001. Born in New York City and raised in New Rochelle, New Y ...

(Mayor of Los Angeles) * Robert Duggan ( Pharmacyclics) * Sehat Sutardja (

Marvell Technology Group Marvell Technology, Inc. is an American company, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, which develops and produces semiconductors and related technology. Founded in 1995, the company had more than 6,000 employees as of 2021, with over 10,00 ...

)Marvell Tech's CEO, Acting COO Take Salary Cut, Each To Be Paid $1
January 16, 2008. *

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was th ...

(

) *

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

(

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

) *

Terry Semel Terence Steven Semel (born February 24, 1943) is an American corporate executive who was the chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Incorporated from 2001 to 2007. He resigned as CEO due in part to pressure from shareholders' dissatisfaction over his compe ...

(

) * Vikram Pandit (

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi ( stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking giant Citicorp and financial conglomera ...

) * William Clay Ford Jr. (

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

) * William Knudsen (Chairman of the Office of Production Management)

Dollar-a-year men

World War I

Interwar

New Deal and World War II

Recent examples

Instances of alternative compensation

Notable one-dollar salary earners

See also

References

Further reading