About 53,000 government employees receive salaries above the legal limit for the civil service in Brazil, reveals a survey conducted by Movimento Pessoa à Frente and República.org and released on Wednesday (26/11). Brazil spent about R$20 billion on payments that exceeded the public wage cap in the period studied, between August 2024 and July 2025, and is the country with the highest spending on “super salaries” in the public service.
The study evaluated data from ten countries: Germany, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the United States, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
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The research indicated that R$20 billion spent on payments above the ceiling “is the highest among the comparison countries and 21 times higher than in second place Argentina.”
The super salaries are mainly concentrated in three positions: judiciary, worth R $ 11.5 billion; Ministry of Public Affairs in the amount of R$ 3.2 billion; Federal executive power in the amount of R$ 4.33 billion, of which 82% belongs to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and the offices of the Federal Public Prosecutor.
Who earns above the ceiling?
The survey, conducted by University of California San Diego (UCSD) researcher and Financial and Oversight Auditor of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) Sergio Guedes Reyes, reveals that 53.5 thousand active and inactive government employees receive salaries. Above the legal limit of R$46.4 thousand.
These servers correspond to 1.34% of a sample of 4 million, while seven out of ten earn up to R$6,000 a month, according to República em dados, from República.org.
There are about 40,000 government employees among the richest 1% of the Brazilian population, and their annual income amounts to more than 685,000 Brazilian reals.
According to the study, approximately 11,000 judges earn more than $400,000, with amounts adjusted for purchasing power parity.
The research also provided examples of countries that have been able to reduce salary distortions, such as Chile, the United Kingdom, and the United States.