Must be nice.

(Fox News) — Five months after United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the world body faced an “emergency situation,” and ordered his top lieutenants to cut their budgets by 3 percent overall, New York City-based staffers have just gotten a 2.2 percent boost to their paychecks.

Among other things, the new income hike means that the highest ranked officials at the U.N. headquarters — including members of the audience Ban harangued last March — will get a take-home, tax-free pay package of about $240,000.

The same officials last year would have earned about $235,240. That is about one-fifth higher than the gross pay of the highest level officials of the U.S. government, including federal Cabinet members, who earn a maximum of $199,700 — before deductions and taxes.

But the U.S. officials still pay taxes, which reduces their pay, on federal taxes alone, by about another 21 percent.

The difference is even bigger for the next highest tier of U.N. officials, who take home about $220,000 a year, tax-free, after the new COLA hike, known in U.N.-speak as a “post adjustment.” That’s up from about $215,760 last year.

Compared to the $179,700 earned by U.S. officials at the equivalent federal pay grade, the difference is about 22 percent — before the U.S. officials start paying taxes, which they must do, like all U.S. citizens.

HT: David