The Scottish Government's 16 ministers are to take a voluntary pay freeze, it was announced on Tuesday.
The freeze will apply both to their ministerial salaries and to their salaries as individual MSPs, both of which would have gone up by 2.33 percent from tomorrow.
The freeze will also apply to First Minister Alex Salmond's ministerial salary of £80,224, but not to the salary he takes as a Westminster MP - currently more than £63,000 and also set to go up by 2.33 percent.
The move was decided at a meeting of the Scottish cabinet on Tuesday after ministers agreed the move in principle "some weeks ago", said a spokesman.
The senior spokesman said: "It is reflective of the pressures that are on families and individuals just now. Ministers are showing a lead in pay issues.
"The First Minister invited ministers to do this, and they are content to move forward with that position."
The freeze will apply for the coming year and will represent an annual saving of£15,000.
No figure was immediately available for the saving from freezing ministers' MSP salaries. And the freeze does not apply to MSPs who are not ministers.
MSP salaries are currently £55,381 and are about to go up by 2.33 percent, in line with the increase for Westminster MPs.
Ministers receive salaries on top of their MSP salaries - £80,224 for the First Minister, £41,618 for each of the five cabinet secretaries, and £26,068 for the 10 ministers below them.
Under the rules of devolution, Mr Salmond takes his MP's salary, and also takes one-third of his Holyrood salary which he then donates to a charitable trust.
His spokesman said that in Mr Salmond's case the freeze would apply to his ministerial salary, but not to his MP's salary. He would give the charitable trust extra money to compensate for the additional cash it would have received if his MSP salary had not been frozen.
Under current rules, MSP salaries are set at 87.5 percent of MP pay levels.
The spokesman rejected suggestions that Mr Salmond was taking a lesser hit than his cabinet colleagues - or that ministers were trying to bounce non-Government MSPs into a similar pay freeze.
He added: "This decision has been taken for absolutely the right reasons - in order that it can be seen that this is a Government aligning itself with the plight that many people in our society are facing in the current economic difficulties."
