“If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool”
– A Clinton advisor to the Guardian, via Andrew Sullivan
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
Important things I learned:
