Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Bernie Sanders' Net Worth

With Bernie Sanders repeatedly talking about taxing "the rich", I thought it was prudent to take a quick look at his net worth as he declared on his annual Senate financial disclosure for 2018.  

Let's start by looking at his non-investment earnings outside of his Senate annual salary of $174,000:

City of Burlington, VT pension - $5,240.52

McMillan - St. Martin's Press book royalties - $391,000

Verso Publications book royalties - $1,810.37

Todd R. Lockwood Works royalties - $109.82

This brings Senator Sanders total non-investment earnings in calendar 2018 to $398,160.71 and when his Senate salary is included, his total non-investment earnings for 2018 were $572,160.71.

Now, let's look at his assets as shown on these screen captures from his financial disclosure:



Since the value of the assets are only declared in ranges, here are the two key numbers:

Minimum Value of Assets - $427,027

Maximum Value of Assets - $1,305,000

It is also important to note that the $250,001 to $500,000 that is currently on deposit at the U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union is being held for tax payments on the proceeds of the sale of Sanders' book.

When it comes to Senator Sanders' liabilities, there is only one:


Finally, here is a complete list of Senator Sanders' reportable agreements, all of which are royalty agreements from his books and "We Shall Overcome" album:


While Bernie Sanders makes far more than a median American household as shown here:


...his net worth (excluding the value of his homes in Vermont and Washington) is really rather modest given that his annual salary has ranged from $125,100 (in 1991 when he was the Representative from Vermont's at-large district) to its current level of $174,000.  Compared to other members of Congress like Rep. Darrell Issa (net worth $283.3 million), Rep. Greg Gianforte (net worth $135.7 million) and fellow Senator Mark Warner (net worth $90.2 million), Bernie Sanders is almost Main Street when it comes to his net worth.  If it weren't for his book writing skills, outside of his Senate salary, he would be pretty much average.

1 comment:

  1. Looks like he has not been corrupted. All members of Congress worth multi millions are in the pockets of special interests. They have been bought off. Hope Bernie can prevail in spite of Democratic Party forces against him. He is not perfect but the time is well past to reclaim the bailouts given to the ultra rich over the past 40 yrs.

    ReplyDelete