this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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President Joe Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden earned $619,976 in 2023, according to their joint tax returnreleased by the White House on Monday – the deadline date for Americans to file their taxes.

The White House also released the return for Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, showing that pair made $450,299 last year.

“President Biden believes that all occupants of the Oval Office should be open and honest with the American people,” the White House said in a statement on Monday, “and that the longstanding tradition of annually releasing presidential tax returns should continue unbroken.”

That statement could be seen as a dig at former President Donald Trump, who declined to voluntarily release his tax returns while he was president. Six years of Trump’s tax returns, including from his time as president, were released to the public by the House Ways and Means Committee at the end of 2022.

The bulk of the Bidens’ income came from President Biden’s congressionally mandated $400,000 salary, along with pensions. The first lady also earned $85,985 from her position as a teacher at Northern Virginia Community College.

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[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 121 points 7 months ago (28 children)

You know what's disgusting? 85k salary for a teacher. Teachers need more.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 34 points 7 months ago

A teacher with a doctorate.

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 28 points 7 months ago

Way more than my mom was paid as a teacher. She climbed the ranks for 20 years until retiring relatively recently, and barely broke 70 in all that time.

[–] TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh boy don’t look at Florida’s teacher salaries then. (Or whatever hell holes are the 2 states lower than us)

[–] iheartneopets@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Cries in Oklahoma. I'm hearing from other locals that, since we're losing so many teachers, some classes are being combined into gymnasiums with 120 kids to 1 teacher. Fuck Governor Stitt and his goon Ryan Walters.

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[–] silverbax@lemmy.world 100 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Now let's compare the numbers to Donald Trump's...oh thats right, he said he would release his nine years ago and never did.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

He couldn't even scrape together $200m despite insisting that he's a billionaire. I think we can pretty confidently assume he has hamberder wrappers in his wallet and nothing else.

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, he probably got some Adderall prescriptions he stole from Baron.

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[–] InternetUser2012@midwest.social 9 points 7 months ago

Because he's a broke ass bitch

[–] jkrtn@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Two more weeks! There are just so many papers. Two more weeks. They'll be perfect tax returns.

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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 93 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Okay?

The presidential salary is $400,000/yr, which is pretty small compared to a lot of NATO countries. Jill just has to pull in $200k, which is probably pretty doable for people with their background- I'd bet they own a business or two at least, in which case this is still fairly modest in the US. It's an unimaginable amount of money for me and almost anyone I know, but it's really not out of the ordinary (and maybe even pretty low) for someone in an ownership/leadership position in the US.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 53 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Here's a full breakdown:

Biden's presidential salary is $400,000. Jill Biden reported earning $85,985 from Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches. The Bidens collected $129,876 in taxable interest, pensions and annuities, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions − significantly more than in 2022, producing the spike in income. Jill Biden also reported $4,115 in royalties from prior book publications.

From USA Today

Biden does get a pension for his time as Vice President and senator and they both qualify for social security.

[–] bradorsomething@ttrpg.network 6 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Damn, they’re not rich enough to buy a large house in a blue state.

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[–] sartalon@lemmy.world 72 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Article says Jill pulls $85k. So the rest is probably investments, which is pretty damn modest, considering their age.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 30 points 7 months ago

The Bidens collected $129,876 in taxable interest, pensions and annuities, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions − significantly more than in 2022, producing the spike in income. Jill Biden also reported $4,115 in royalties from prior book publications.

Sauce: USA Today

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Considering the dude has been in the Senate since dinosaurs were on the planet during which time he could partake legally in inside trading and he had access to much of the world's confidential information and a long list of people volunteering to do him favors.

That's Jimmy-Carter-selling-his-peanut-farm modest.

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[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 59 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Seems very modest for the most powerful positon on earth

[–] twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm of two minds here. I don't think anyone for any reason should be allowed to earn over a half million per year. But also there are people whose positions are far less important who have earnings significantly higher than this.

The carryover effect of an economic system that that has catastrophically imbalanced wealth distribution means that in order for actually qualified people occupying roles that are important, you need to compensate them at a very high rate.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

I generally agree with you, but half a mil is peanuts and those aren't the people I think we should be eating. I think something in the 5-10m range is where we should be taking 90% of it or something. But yeah, you need to pay leaders enough for the job to be worth doing, because the goodness of one's heart doesn't provide unfortunately.

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[–] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago (17 children)

Compare that to what chief executives of corporations make.

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[–] moon@lemmy.cafe 31 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's actually not a lot for being the president. Tons of CEOs are making like 100x that lol.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

400k of that is just from the Presidential salary. Which is way higher than I recall from when I learned about it in high school (iirc shit was only 100k/year).

[–] JustZ@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah it's been going up. Makes sense. Arguably not enough for how much stress that job is. Of course it comes with a free house and that has a bowling alley in it, and escape hatches for hookers.

[–] Senshi@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

The reason politicians should have good salaries is that it should dissuade them from being attracted by bribes or other kinds of corruption. Of course, some peoples' greed knows no bounds.

And frankly, I'd much rather see public servants rake in big money than the 0.1% "businessmen".

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The real money from the presidency comes after which is when they get paid millions in speaking fees to take advantage of connections.

[–] isles@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

There's a real chance that if he wins, he dies naturally in office.

[–] Wisas62@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Effective tax rate of 23.64%. He's very nearly in the 1% as far as yearly wages go, probably is when you calculate his total net worth. He paid $146k in taxes, more than some people will pay in their whole lifetime.

[–] Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

He's in the top 5%-2% of income, with the 1% starting at 800k or so.

He's worth about 10 million dollars.

The 1% of Networth begins around 10 billion dollars.

By income He's near the top, but definitely not near the top of net worth. I'm guessing the income statistics get skewed by the fact that usually the ultra wealthy don't take most of their wealth growth as income.

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