Perhaps only one word can be used to describe all of the leading presidential contenders: multimillionaire.
Compared to the Average American Family
Barack Obama, with the lowest asset total of all candidates, is worth 25 times more than the average American household. Mitt Romney, with the highest asset total, is worth 1075 times more than the average American household. On average, the major Presidential candidates have assets of 47 million dollars, or 505 times the average American household.
Data
Rudy Giuliani – 40 Million Dollars
Mitt Romney – 100 Million Dollars*
Hillary Clinton – 51 Million Dollars
John McCain – 35 Million Dollars
Barack Obama – 2.5 Million Dollars**
John Edwards – 50 Million Dollars
Average American Household – .093 Million Dollars (93 Thousand Dollars)
*This number represents an average from the lower quintile from several sources that estimate Romney’s total assets
**This figure is from May 2007 and do not include revenues his highly profitable book ‘The Audacity of Hope’.
Note: Personal assets of presidential candidates do not include the assets of their spouses. Most notably, assets for the McCain’s and Clinton’s is much higher when their spouses are factored in.
Sources
Candidates’ assets, income on display
Clinton, Romney Are Wealthiest Candidates
“Note: Personal assets of presidential candidates do not include the assets of their spouses. Most notably, income for the McCain’s and Clinton’s is much higher when their spouses are factored in.”
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In this comment you are using the terms “assets” and “income” interchangeably. They are not the same. I think you meant to say “assets” (not “income”) in your last sentence.
Ah thanks, good catch!
Michael Bloomberg, for some reason floating the idea of a run, has $11 billion.
I doubt many Presidents have been poor or even average in wealth. What was Harry Truman worth? Perhaps less than most. Nixon may have been only modestly wealthy, at least when he became President. Reagan wasn’t poor by any means, nor Jimmy Carter. Clinton again not really rich but certainly comfortable. Some excellent Presidents have been quite rich: Roosevelt for one (though his mother held the purse string, I gather). The more important issue for Democrats for sure is race. It might just split the party enough so that a Republican wins again. Unthinkable, but possible.
With his win last night in Michigan, hopefully Willard will stay in longer, keep spending, and watch that tall bar shrink.
I believe the figure you’re quoting for the Average American Household is actually the “Median” American Household. A minor mistake to all but a statistician, but the spirit of the message is the same.
Isn’t the point that they’re really stinkin’ out of touch? Even the populist Edwards is drifting off from his daily realization that America is economically bifurcated into the la-la land of private jets and corporate boardrooms.
My family’s income is comfortable – therefore I have to make an effort to see things from poorer people’s point of view. But what can any of these people do to understand people closer to the income median, or below it? How can they relate, and in relating, make policies to help us?
FDR is a good example of such a transcendence of personal finances. I’m pretty sure that the voting records of these candidates don’t bode well for populism. And Gov. Huckabee, conspicuously absent from this list, wants a regressive soak-the-poor sales tax to replace income taxes.
Winston: Yes, sorry. ‘The Fed said the net worth of the median American family — the one smack in the statistical middle — was $93,100 in 2004. Net worth, the difference between a family’s assets and liabilities, rose a robust 10.3% between 1998 and 2001 and 17.4% in the three-year interval before that.’