

 Net Worth of Every U.S. President from Washington to Obama - metamemetics
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/the-net-worth-of-the-us-presidents-washington-to-obama/57020/3/

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scott_s
The calculation is the _peak worth_ of the president, which would include
wealth accumulated after becoming president. Particularly for the modern
presidents, I'm more interested in seeing the peak estimate up until they
become president.

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gjm11
In the introductory section, they say -- in italics -- "One of the most
important conclusions of this analysis is that the presidency has little to do
with wealth."

And then they list 43 presidents' net worth; their lowest (and quite sparsely
populated) category is "less than $1M" and from a quick glance I think the
median is somewhere around $10M.

Yup, sure looks to me as if the presidency has little to do with wealth.

(Perhaps what they mean is that there's no single simple strong connection:
being president doesn't mean that you instantly become rich, and also doesn't
require you to have been rich first. Well, sure, but so what?)

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andywood
I agree - as worded, that sounds ridiculous. A majority of them were multi-
millionaires according to the list. As if you would encounter such a thing in
a random sampling of 43 people! I wonder what they meant by that line.

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coderdude
I assumed they meant that the quality of their term as president wasn't a
factor in their wealth.

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balding_n_tired
1\. Odd statement on JQ Adams: "He devoted most of his adult life to public
service, notably after leaving office." True, but clearer if one said "notably
as a congressman after his single term as president".

2\. The statement that Cleveland's estate was outside Washington, DC, is I
think incorrect. It is the neighborhood now called Cleveland Park, well within
city limits but then I suppose newly developed.

3\. The calculation on Hayes makes me wonder whether they are including real
estate valuations at current prices. That's fine if an area is still planted
in corn or tobacco, less so if it was crops and is now built up.

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vibhavs
Annoying: the link takes you to the middle of the 5 page series.

Here's the link to the first page:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/the-
net-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/the-net-worth-of-
the-us-presidents-washington-to-obama/57020/1/)

~~~
pavs
Even better.. A single page:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2010/05/the-net-
wo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/print/2010/05/the-net-worth-of-the-
us-presidents-washington-to-obama/57020/)

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fizx
Google spreadsheet:

[http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ak_L_zLqm09sdGQ0bXBC...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ak_L_zLqm09sdGQ0bXBCeHZqaU9FY2k3bTJXVDBvcHc&hl=en)

~~~
thisisnotmyname
Google chart:

[http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvg&chs=500&c...](http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=bvg&chs=500&chds=0,600000000&chbh=19,1,1&chs=900x300&chd=t:525000000,19000000,212000000,101000000,27000000,21000000,119000000,26000000,5000000,51000000,10000000,6000000,4000000,2000000,500000,500000,500000,500000,3000000,500000,500000,25000000,5000000,25000000,1000000,125000000,3000000,500000,1000000,500000,75000000,60000000,500000,8000000,500000,20000000,15000000,7000000,7000000,13000000,23000000,38000000,20000000,5000000)

I put 500k for the < 1 million people. I didn't know what to do with JFK, so I
put him as 500k too. I duplicated Grover Cleveland so that the count would be
correct. When I tried to add axis labels google said the url was too big.

~~~
resdirector
Would a log scale on the y-axis make the data clearer?

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anonymousDan
What amazes me is how many of them died penniless, despite having once held
huge fortunes!

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coderdude
I find it odd that George Washington was worth half a billion dollars. It
makes me wonder if his motive for revolution was extravagant wealth (Edit: In
the sense that he amassed this fortune through the revolution, not so that he
could help create a place where you were free to amass that wealth).

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c0riander
George Washington amassed most of his wealth through his marriage to Martha
(1759), not through the revolution. Prior to that, he was a deeply indebted
commissioned soldier and former small-time planter.

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jergason
I would love to read more about this. Do you have a good source? I don't know
much about Washington besides some hazy memories from reading 1776.

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randallsquared
[http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-
alias%3Dstripbooks&f...](http://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-
alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=george+washington) ?

~~~
jergason
I know how search works on Amazon. I was asking for specific recommendations.

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jackfoxy
Each snippet is too brief and breazy to have much redeeming value. For
instance while Washington was the richest man in the 13 colonies at the time
of the Revolution, he was land-rich and controlled some significant means of
production, but like everyone else in the colonies he would have difficulty
raising cash.

Also it's easy to overlook the significance of the several presidents, Lincoln
included, whose peak assets, including the equity in their residences, was
less than $1 million in today's money. Can you imagine electing a president
like that today? Also note how they are clustered around the Civil War. I
don't know what the significance of that is, if any.

~~~
scott_s
I can't find anything on what Clinton's worth was before he became president,
but I don't think it was that much. My understanding is that most of his
wealth came after.

~~~
_delirium
This article claims that the Clintons' net worth in 1992 was $700k (about $1m
in 2010 dollars), most of it from Hillary:
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/199...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1992/07/01/87389/index.htm)

So, not poor, but as far as I can tell, the lowest starting net worth of any
recent president. I had thought Carter might have been poor too, but
apparently his peanut farming wasn't a tiny operation: he had a net worth of
$811,000 in 1975, or $3.2m in 2010 dollars, according to the footnote at the
end of: <http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,947792,00.html>

Ford is another candidate, but I can't seem to find info on his 1974-or-
earlier net worth.

Edit: Ford's net worth in "late 1973" was apparently $256,000, or $1.2m in
2010 dollars. So that'd put him roughly on par with Clinton. Source:
[http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/199...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/1999/07/01/262278/index.htm)

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m0th87
This would be so much more awesome in visual form. As a five-page table, it's
impossible to extract any conclusions from.

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mahmud
What visual form would you use to express prose? The writing on the right
provides context.

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julio_the_squid
I'm interested in visualizing the data, not graphing the prose. A line graph
would work great, with the y axis representing dollars and the x axis
representing time labeled with each President's name.

