Joe Biden Net Worth

A candidate’s policy positions are a very important part of deciding whether or not to vote for them. To some people, the policy positions are the only important issues. On the other side, some people take the view that the only thing that matters is a candidate’s background and qualifications. Sometimes looking at a candidate’s net worth can give some insight into both of these things. How did the candidate make their money? Is that relevant to the Presidency? How might the candidate’s self-interest impact their policy positions? There’s always some distance between what a candidate says they believe and how they actually govern. You can often judge their self-interest from their net worth and background. From there you might be able to get some insight at what that distance will be.

Joe Biden is the current Vice President of the United States in Barack Obama’s administration. Before this, he was in the Senate for 6 terms, that’s 36 years. When Joe Biden first entered the Senate it was still the Nixon administration. In 1972, Joe Biden won an astonishing upset against Caleb Boggs, by essentially going door to door in a very small state (Delaware) to drum up votes. He isn’t officially running in the 2016 presidential election. Although it is widely considered likely that Joe Biden will end up running if it looks like Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers are flagging.

Joe Biden’s Net Worth

Age: 72
Occupation: Politician
Most Money Made In: Senate
Estimated Net Worth as of 2013: $550,000

Joe Biden has managed to keep almost none of his senate salary. He doesn’t really need to keep a substantial amount of money because of his senate pension. The important lesson here is that even if you have a high income it is still important to spend less than you make. If you spend all of the money you make you can still make no progress.

Joe Biden’s Net Worth is given by his financial disclosure. His personal financial disclosure was taken from the Center for Responsive politics webpage: opensecrets.org. The disclosure itself isn’t very interesting at all. Joe Biden owns a few mutual funds and some cash.

Joe Biden has a relatively standard set of economic views for a Democrat. Like many Democrats, Joe Biden has an unfortunately mixed record on free trade. Joe Biden voted in favor of NAFTA but opposed CAFTA. Fortunately, he supports normalizing trade relations with China and Vietnam. The president often has a lot of leeway in negotiating agreements like this, so support of free trade is a crucial part of a potential presidential platform.

His incentives are mostly aligned with the upper middle class. Joe Biden gets most of his money with his senate job. This has a very high salary and has to pay the very highest tax brackets. Here is an example of a way his wealth might incentivize him to vote. If the top tax rate was raised this could cost him a great deal of money. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t support such a thing, or if he opposes it that he does so out of greed.

For more on this, check out a great posting on this same topic over at thousandaire.com.