2026 Youth Pastor Compensation Report
Year nine of the Youth Pastor Compensation Survey is complete! The survey is brought to you by Chemistry Staffing in association with The Youth Cartel and Download Youth Ministry. Dan Navarra has been the lead researcher and author of this report for the past nine years. Dan also has over fifteen years of youth ministry experience. Read to the end for a special note from Dan. Special thanks are well deserved for the general editing done, as always, by Mark Oestreicher of The Youth Cartel. The heart of this team remains empowering youth workers to better understand their compensation and to have conversations about their careers and compensation with their churches, ultimately leading to long-term health for the youth workers and the ministries they lead. We care about youth workers and want to help them win at life and ministry!