Joe Biden’s Net Worth in 2024: President’s Path to a Millionaire

Although estimates vary, Forbes most recently put the US president’s net worth at $10 million — less than one-quarter of the $41 million some Republican supporters claimed the president was worth. Biden’s net worth had gone up since he assumed office, but rather than a pay increase, Forbes’s analysts say it had to do with his real estate portfolio growing in value in recent years.

Namely, Biden’s two homes in Delaware alone were worth $7 million as of mid-2023, marking a $1.8 million increase over two years. One of these properties is a 4,800-square-foot summer house in Rehoboth Beach. Worth $4.5 million today, Biden originally bought the property for $2.8 million in 2017, the year he left the office of the vice president. The US president’s other house is an even more spacious property in Greenville, which is currently worth $2.5 million.

Halfway into his vice presidential term, Joe Biden was worth only $1.1 million. At the same time, then-president Barack Obama’s worth was estimated at between $2 million and $7 million. This is much lower than what Biden is worth nowadays as the US president, but it’s important to note that most of Obama’s wealth at the time was tied up in savings. On the real estate front, he only had equity in his $1.65-million Chicago home; unlike Biden, he didn’t own any other properties.

As his vice presidential term ended in early 2017, the net worth of Joe Biden was estimated at a relatively modest $2.5 million. Even before entering the White House, Biden was known as one of the least wealthy Congress members. To that point, data reveals he ranked as the 570th (out of 585) wealthiest officials in 2005, 614th (out of 636) in 2006, and 626th (out of 639) in 2007.

During Donald Trump’s four-year presidency, Biden and his wife Jill added $17.3 million to their wealth, despite the fact Biden was out of office at the time. In 2017, Biden’s autobiography was published, helping him earn $11.1 million that year. Besides running an ultimately successful presidential campaign, Biden spent the next three years giving speeches across the country, which earned him $4.6 million in 2018, another $1 million in 2019, and $800,000 in 2020.

The reason this financial gain wasn’t reflected in Joe Biden’s net worth, according to Forbes, is that he didn’t get to keep all that money. Over the course of four years, he spent $7 million on taxes alone, with another $80,000 spent on mortgage interest rates and $180,000 on paying the family’s household staff. The Bidens also gave $1.3 million to charity between 2017 and 2021.

In addition to this sum, the US president has a $50,000 expense account for items like clothes, groceries, and dry cleaning. There’s also a non-taxable $100,000 travel account, as well as a $100,000 allowance for the president’s family to redecorate the White House before moving in.

According to official data, President Biden’s salary totaled $579,514 in 2022. He also had to pay $137,658 in federal income taxes on his presidential salary, working out to a fairly high 23.8% tax rate. For comparison, the average rate for a typical US household currently stands at 14%.

Seeing as Biden and his wife share all their assets, Jill Biden’s individual net worth is unknown. However, publicly available data shows the First Lady earned $82,335 in 2022 from her job at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has taught English and writing since 2009.

As of late January 2024, Donald Trump — currently looking to become the Republican Party’s official candidate in the 2024 presidential election — was valued at $2.6 billion, making him by far the wealthiest US presidential hopeful. With only a handful of names still in the race, Joe Biden’s wealth of $10 million puts him in third place. He ranks behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a controversial independent candidate whose net worth was recently estimated at $15 million.

Biden also lags behind three Republican candidates who are no longer in the running. These include businessman Vivek Ramaswamy (estimated at $880 million), Governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum ($100 million), and former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie ($15 million).

While some media outlets have claimed that Joe Biden was worth as much as $41 million, the 46th president’s actual net worth currently stands at $10 million. Biden has added $7.5 million to his wealth since the end of his vice presidential term in 2017, most of it from the value of the two prime pieces of real estate he owns with his wife Jill. He also had a lucrative book deal in 2017 and numerous public speaking engagements during his four years outside the White House.

Throughout his decades-long career, Biden has always been one of the country’s least wealthy politicians. And while Joe Biden’s net assets and net worth are enough to rank him third among the 2024 US presidential candidates, he is also the least rich of the six living US presidents, ranking behind Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump.