November 5, 2008 • 11 mins
Compared to the average American salary, the President is well-off. However, most Presidents are wealthy when they arrive in office. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the fact and fiction surrounding the President's salary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Factory Fiction History Stuff for the History buff
on how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm editor Candice gifts Into. I'm I'm I
guest staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Candice, how's it going
pretty good? How are you? I am gearing out for
my Christmas shopping. I always like to do it early
and beat the crowds. Oh, you're better than me. Well,
(00:21):
I was thinking what sort of job could I have
that would give me carte blaunched just by just whatever
I want? And I was thinking the more powerful you are,
typically the more money you make. That. I was like, well,
what about the most powerful man in the in the country,
in the free world, the the US President. He must
have just, you know, tons of money to work with,
(00:42):
you would think, you would think, And then I was
really surprised to find out that's not the case. Yeah,
not exactly. Presidents make uh. Now, it's about four hundred
thousand a year, which I mean in scope comparatively in
the private sector, it's not that much. It's not that great.
I guess it's not. I mean, to me, in my opinion,
four hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of them,
(01:02):
but considering his position, yeah, considering everything he has to do,
it doesn't seem like that much. And like you mentioned,
in the private sector, Bush is actually or he was
actually part owner of the Texas Rangers and he sold
that a couple of years ago and I think he
earned like fourteen point nine million dollars for it. And
then Cheney is also independently wealthy. I think his net
(01:26):
worth is around thirty million. And yet again four hundred
thousand dollars, and then the vice president's salary is two
hundred eight thousand, one hundred dollars and telling him of
the president salary, that hasn't always been the case. Obviously
gets changed throughout the years to accommodate with for inflation
and stuff, but it actually gets changed very often. Um,
(01:46):
the last time was changed, Uh, Clinton actually made two
hundred thousand. But before that, like it hadn't been changed
since about sixty nine, So it was about thirty years
of the president went without a pay increase. Yes, they're
in sixty nine. It was a hundred thousand, and then
Clinton signed legislation back in for the increase to occur
I think in two thousand one, and that's an important
(02:08):
caveat the president can't increase his own salary when he's
in office, that's right, And that's a little different. Actually,
if you look at Congress for instance, Congress can actually
raise their own salaries, and that's a pretty popular vote.
You would imagine, Yeah, I can't imagine anyone saying no
to that. And for important and obvious reasons, we see
why the president can changes in salary. But um, the
(02:30):
first lady we've talked about before, she has no salary,
but she gets a pension when her husband is out
of office. It's twenty tho dollars a year, which you know,
it sounds kind of meager, especially in comparison to your
retired president's pension of hundred fifty thousand. And then he
also gets another hundred fifty thousand to maintain his staff.
And you can even go back like people ask like, hey,
(02:51):
that's a lot of money to me. So do we
really have to pay the president that much? I mean,
shouldn't he be in the job to be a good
public servant to to the public and the actual The
Framers actually considered this, and they thought, like they actually considered,
you know, looking at the possibility of giving legislators or
presidents no salary. But if that were the case, uh,
(03:13):
you know, it wouldn't really attract um people from the
private sector who are talented, talented people and they're skilled,
and it wouldn't bring them over and attract them to
politics in that life. That's a great point, especially if
you think about the fact that it takes millions of
dollars to even campaign for the office. That's true. If
someone wanted to run for president and there were no
(03:33):
salary for the president, wo would have to save up
money and you know, really be independently wealthy in order
to hold that office. And it's funny these days, because
you know, we would like to see equality, we'd like
to see a you know, a really sort of fair,
even keeled person in the White House. And not many
of us who I'd get all up in arms for
someone who was incredibly independently wealthy was making promises to
(03:55):
help out middle of the road Americans. It would seem
like a big disparity. That's true. That's true. And and
Framers actually considered that it would actually insent the politicians
to seek out corruption. I mean, I'm not saying that
corruption isn't possible today even with their salaries. But but
making no salary, they would certainly want to seek guilt
underhanded ways to do that. So I guess another argument
would be that if the president had no salary, he
(04:19):
or she would still have an expense account, and yeah,
that says something. And the president does have an expensive
is free home and board exactly gets free and board
and at which is a pretty nice place to have
free board, not at all. And the vice president's houses
and too shabby either, very nice. Oh gosh, this this
gorgeous Victorian mansion. I'm kind of in love with it
because the more staid in the White House. But as
(04:40):
far as their expense accounts go, that's pretty generous to
the president gets fifty thou dollars and expenses, a hundred
thousand dollars for travel, and the nineteen thousand for entertainment,
and again, pretty sweet little package. And the vice president
gets ten thousand dollars and expenses. So and we knew
that entertain meaning. It may sound frivolous. A nineteen dollars
(05:02):
may sound like an awful lot of money for entertainment,
but it's really important. It's diplomatic, it's about protocol. It's ceremonial.
It's really necessary for Washington. And that's true, and especially
considering UH, presidents have to bring around foreign diplomats and
stuff like that, and so they don't want to get
off the impression that America is poor. So considering that
some of the people who go on to become president
(05:24):
are so independently wealthy, we really do have to staff
and look at a couple of historical examples and see
exactly why people would choose to do that. That's right,
and there are there are a few examples of people
who were wealthy before they entered into politics, and you
you know, you questioned, like why would they why would
they like sacrifice a salary like a private sector salary,
(05:44):
And you look at the examples there um Andrew Jackson,
for one, Herbertover and uh lbj are examples that they
got a lot of money before going into politics. And
Hoover is actually an interesting case. He was actually, you know,
orphaned at a young age and he sort of rags
the richest story. He um, he was able to make
his way into Stanford and get an engineering degree and
(06:05):
he he uh the next few years, like I guess
through the nineteen tenth and nineteen twenties. He actually got
a lot of private will through mining engineering, which doesn't
seem like it would it would get you a lot
of money, but at the time that was the that
was the position to be in. So it's funny that
you should mention people who make the act of decision
to go into politics, because on the exact opposite end
(06:26):
of the spectrum you have people who are born into
nobility and unlike the US president, monarchs stay on the
throne until they die, and the US president, well, that's
not the case either. He served one term for four
years or two terms for eight years and then it's over.
It put something kind of an awkward position. It does.
(06:47):
It does. It's so funny, and it's almost like a
mother watching her son get married and then she's not
quite sure like how much she can she can interfere
and say, um, I think you need to be doing this,
or I think you need to be styling your hair
in this way, or I don't really like that's you
pricked out. That's how I can see of the ex president,
of course on a much more important scale, and George
Washington really set the president for the ex president and
(07:11):
I have to recommend a book for you guys. It's
called Second Acts Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House.
And I think this book does such a fantastic job
of explaining the strange role of the ex president or
the post president. Really, and the idea that George Washington
came up with was undone with politics. I'm gonna go home.
I'm going to be a gentleman farmer and if anyone
(07:32):
needs me in Washington, well, they never to find me,
and they did need him. And so he went back
and with a lot of grace and dignity, he served
another military role and then he went back home and retired.
And I think that before Truman's time, on average, the
ex presidents lived about eleven years after they finished the office,
and today it's more like fifteen years. And again that's
(07:54):
an average. Someone like Jimmy Carter is still going strong,
like really really strong, that's right, And he's still making
differences in the public spot late at least, and in
promoting future presidents. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the
ex presidents they make a careful decision about how they
want to spend their retirement. And I think that today
even more than in the past. It's important for them
(08:15):
to be seen and they can fill a diplomatic post
or they can fill a political post, and there's something
that's really powerful and that creates a resonating feel of unity.
When you see a bunch of ex presidents altogether, you
get the senset. There's still a lot of confidence in
that in that role, and there's still a lot of
satisfaction of well, I played this out. And you know,
(08:38):
it's funny talking about taking pride and serving that position.
My favorite ex president ever, Thomas Jefferson. On his tombstone,
it doesn't even say that he was President of the
United States. That wasn't something that he took as much
pride in as founding the University of Virginia, which he
did after his presidency, helping to draft the Declaration and
the Statute of Religious Freedom in Virginia. Uh. Teddy Roosevelt
(09:01):
also had a really interesting post presidency. He was so
popular and so young that he could have easily want
a second term, but he chose not to run again
and instead he recommended Taft to the position, and he
did win and he was president. But then Teddy came
back and he was like, I'm not so happy with
what the things are going. So he ran again, and
he actually split the Republican Party ticket at that point
(09:24):
between himself and Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson got in,
which is probably a good thing because of the diplomacy
he was able to extend during his administration. But you
don't see a lot of presidents doing that generally when
they're done with the office. They're kind of done and
they don't really advise at that point, Like you said,
they have a ceremonial presence more than anything else. Yeah,
(09:45):
it's kind of nice. You mentioned that that you see
ex presidents together, and often that happens to be presidents
that are both Republican and Democrat. It's kind of nice
to see the bipartisan, you know, and bearing of the
ex sort of thing exactly. And again with Thomas Jefferson,
my favorite, he in one of his political um allies
turned enemies, John Adams. They were, oh my goodness, they
(10:08):
were in communicator for years and then after they both
finished the presidency, I think they were sort of a
quiet understanding between them, and they had this correspondence back
and forth over the years, and then they ended up
dying on the exact same day to Lie four six.
And I think John Adams said that his only consolation
on his deathbed was knowing that his friend Thomas Jefferson
lived and you know, ha ha, he didn't. But but
(10:32):
the office also takes a physical toll on presidents too,
that's right. And if you look at like I imagine
like Nixon, for instance, had had some hard times there
in the last in the last months of his presidency,
and I'm sure that took a toll on him. But
also if you look at perhaps Um Reagan, he uh
he maybe weren't wasn't haggard after office because of political reasons,
but the country watched as his health were degenerated and
(10:55):
he suffered from Alzheimer's and he started forgetting you know,
even the fact that you was president, And it's pretty said,
it is, And even to flashback to someone like FDR
and his health conditions, it's hard to see your country's
leader incapacitated like that. But the fact that his mind
was sharp enough to lead the country, I think is
(11:16):
a really really powerful thing. It's true. So if you
want to learn more about presidents past, present, and future,
be sure to check out how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Factory Fiction History Stuff for the History buff
on how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm editor Candice gifts Into. I'm I'm I
guest staff writer Jane McGrath. Hey, Candice, how's it going
pretty good? How are you? I am gearing out for
my Christmas shopping. I always like to do it early
and beat the crowds. Oh, you're better than me. Well,
(00:21):
I was thinking what sort of job could I have
that would give me carte blaunched just by just whatever
I want? And I was thinking the more powerful you are,
typically the more money you make. That. I was like, well,
what about the most powerful man in the in the country,
in the free world, the the US President. He must
have just, you know, tons of money to work with,
(00:42):
you would think, you would think, And then I was
really surprised to find out that's not the case. Yeah,
not exactly. Presidents make uh. Now, it's about four hundred
thousand a year, which I mean in scope comparatively in
the private sector, it's not that much. It's not that great.
I guess it's not. I mean, to me, in my opinion,
four hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of them,
(01:02):
but considering his position, yeah, considering everything he has to do,
it doesn't seem like that much. And like you mentioned,
in the private sector, Bush is actually or he was
actually part owner of the Texas Rangers and he sold
that a couple of years ago and I think he
earned like fourteen point nine million dollars for it. And
then Cheney is also independently wealthy. I think his net
(01:26):
worth is around thirty million. And yet again four hundred
thousand dollars, and then the vice president's salary is two
hundred eight thousand, one hundred dollars and telling him of
the president salary, that hasn't always been the case. Obviously
gets changed throughout the years to accommodate with for inflation
and stuff, but it actually gets changed very often. Um,
(01:46):
the last time was changed, Uh, Clinton actually made two
hundred thousand. But before that, like it hadn't been changed
since about sixty nine, So it was about thirty years
of the president went without a pay increase. Yes, they're
in sixty nine. It was a hundred thousand, and then
Clinton signed legislation back in for the increase to occur
I think in two thousand one, and that's an important
(02:08):
caveat the president can't increase his own salary when he's
in office, that's right, And that's a little different. Actually,
if you look at Congress for instance, Congress can actually
raise their own salaries, and that's a pretty popular vote.
You would imagine, Yeah, I can't imagine anyone saying no
to that. And for important and obvious reasons, we see
why the president can changes in salary. But um, the
(02:30):
first lady we've talked about before, she has no salary,
but she gets a pension when her husband is out
of office. It's twenty tho dollars a year, which you know,
it sounds kind of meager, especially in comparison to your
retired president's pension of hundred fifty thousand. And then he
also gets another hundred fifty thousand to maintain his staff.
And you can even go back like people ask like, hey,
(02:51):
that's a lot of money to me. So do we
really have to pay the president that much? I mean,
shouldn't he be in the job to be a good
public servant to to the public and the actual The
Framers actually considered this, and they thought, like they actually considered,
you know, looking at the possibility of giving legislators or
presidents no salary. But if that were the case, uh,
(03:13):
you know, it wouldn't really attract um people from the
private sector who are talented, talented people and they're skilled,
and it wouldn't bring them over and attract them to
politics in that life. That's a great point, especially if
you think about the fact that it takes millions of
dollars to even campaign for the office. That's true. If
someone wanted to run for president and there were no
(03:33):
salary for the president, wo would have to save up
money and you know, really be independently wealthy in order
to hold that office. And it's funny these days, because
you know, we would like to see equality, we'd like
to see a you know, a really sort of fair,
even keeled person in the White House. And not many
of us who I'd get all up in arms for
someone who was incredibly independently wealthy was making promises to
(03:55):
help out middle of the road Americans. It would seem
like a big disparity. That's true. That's true. And and
Framers actually considered that it would actually insent the politicians
to seek out corruption. I mean, I'm not saying that
corruption isn't possible today even with their salaries. But but
making no salary, they would certainly want to seek guilt
underhanded ways to do that. So I guess another argument
would be that if the president had no salary, he
(04:19):
or she would still have an expense account, and yeah,
that says something. And the president does have an expensive
is free home and board exactly gets free and board
and at which is a pretty nice place to have
free board, not at all. And the vice president's houses
and too shabby either, very nice. Oh gosh, this this
gorgeous Victorian mansion. I'm kind of in love with it
because the more staid in the White House. But as
(04:40):
far as their expense accounts go, that's pretty generous to
the president gets fifty thou dollars and expenses, a hundred
thousand dollars for travel, and the nineteen thousand for entertainment,
and again, pretty sweet little package. And the vice president
gets ten thousand dollars and expenses. So and we knew
that entertain meaning. It may sound frivolous. A nineteen dollars
(05:02):
may sound like an awful lot of money for entertainment,
but it's really important. It's diplomatic, it's about protocol. It's ceremonial.
It's really necessary for Washington. And that's true, and especially
considering UH, presidents have to bring around foreign diplomats and
stuff like that, and so they don't want to get
off the impression that America is poor. So considering that
some of the people who go on to become president
(05:24):
are so independently wealthy, we really do have to staff
and look at a couple of historical examples and see
exactly why people would choose to do that. That's right,
and there are there are a few examples of people
who were wealthy before they entered into politics, and you
you know, you questioned, like why would they why would
they like sacrifice a salary like a private sector salary,
(05:44):
And you look at the examples there um Andrew Jackson,
for one, Herbertover and uh lbj are examples that they
got a lot of money before going into politics. And
Hoover is actually an interesting case. He was actually, you know,
orphaned at a young age and he sort of rags
the richest story. He um, he was able to make
his way into Stanford and get an engineering degree and
(06:05):
he he uh the next few years, like I guess
through the nineteen tenth and nineteen twenties. He actually got
a lot of private will through mining engineering, which doesn't
seem like it would it would get you a lot
of money, but at the time that was the that
was the position to be in. So it's funny that
you should mention people who make the act of decision
to go into politics, because on the exact opposite end
(06:26):
of the spectrum you have people who are born into
nobility and unlike the US president, monarchs stay on the
throne until they die, and the US president, well, that's
not the case either. He served one term for four
years or two terms for eight years and then it's over.
It put something kind of an awkward position. It does.
(06:47):
It does. It's so funny, and it's almost like a
mother watching her son get married and then she's not
quite sure like how much she can she can interfere
and say, um, I think you need to be doing this,
or I think you need to be styling your hair
in this way, or I don't really like that's you
pricked out. That's how I can see of the ex president,
of course on a much more important scale, and George
Washington really set the president for the ex president and
(07:11):
I have to recommend a book for you guys. It's
called Second Acts Presidential Lives and Legacies after the White House.
And I think this book does such a fantastic job
of explaining the strange role of the ex president or
the post president. Really, and the idea that George Washington
came up with was undone with politics. I'm gonna go home.
I'm going to be a gentleman farmer and if anyone
(07:32):
needs me in Washington, well, they never to find me,
and they did need him. And so he went back
and with a lot of grace and dignity, he served
another military role and then he went back home and retired.
And I think that before Truman's time, on average, the
ex presidents lived about eleven years after they finished the office,
and today it's more like fifteen years. And again that's
(07:54):
an average. Someone like Jimmy Carter is still going strong,
like really really strong, that's right, And he's still making
differences in the public spot late at least, and in
promoting future presidents. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the
ex presidents they make a careful decision about how they
want to spend their retirement. And I think that today
even more than in the past. It's important for them
(08:15):
to be seen and they can fill a diplomatic post
or they can fill a political post, and there's something
that's really powerful and that creates a resonating feel of unity.
When you see a bunch of ex presidents altogether, you
get the senset. There's still a lot of confidence in
that in that role, and there's still a lot of
satisfaction of well, I played this out. And you know,
(08:38):
it's funny talking about taking pride and serving that position.
My favorite ex president ever, Thomas Jefferson. On his tombstone,
it doesn't even say that he was President of the
United States. That wasn't something that he took as much
pride in as founding the University of Virginia, which he
did after his presidency, helping to draft the Declaration and
the Statute of Religious Freedom in Virginia. Uh. Teddy Roosevelt
(09:01):
also had a really interesting post presidency. He was so
popular and so young that he could have easily want
a second term, but he chose not to run again
and instead he recommended Taft to the position, and he
did win and he was president. But then Teddy came
back and he was like, I'm not so happy with
what the things are going. So he ran again, and
he actually split the Republican Party ticket at that point
(09:24):
between himself and Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson got in,
which is probably a good thing because of the diplomacy
he was able to extend during his administration. But you
don't see a lot of presidents doing that generally when
they're done with the office. They're kind of done and
they don't really advise at that point, Like you said,
they have a ceremonial presence more than anything else. Yeah,
(09:45):
it's kind of nice. You mentioned that that you see
ex presidents together, and often that happens to be presidents
that are both Republican and Democrat. It's kind of nice
to see the bipartisan, you know, and bearing of the
ex sort of thing exactly. And again with Thomas Jefferson,
my favorite, he in one of his political um allies
turned enemies, John Adams. They were, oh my goodness, they
(10:08):
were in communicator for years and then after they both
finished the presidency, I think they were sort of a
quiet understanding between them, and they had this correspondence back
and forth over the years, and then they ended up
dying on the exact same day to Lie four six.
And I think John Adams said that his only consolation
on his deathbed was knowing that his friend Thomas Jefferson
lived and you know, ha ha, he didn't. But but
(10:32):
the office also takes a physical toll on presidents too,
that's right. And if you look at like I imagine
like Nixon, for instance, had had some hard times there
in the last in the last months of his presidency,
and I'm sure that took a toll on him. But
also if you look at perhaps Um Reagan, he uh
he maybe weren't wasn't haggard after office because of political reasons,
but the country watched as his health were degenerated and
(10:55):
he suffered from Alzheimer's and he started forgetting you know,
even the fact that you was president, And it's pretty said,
it is, And even to flashback to someone like FDR
and his health conditions, it's hard to see your country's
leader incapacitated like that. But the fact that his mind
was sharp enough to lead the country, I think is
(11:16):
a really really powerful thing. It's true. So if you
want to learn more about presidents past, present, and future,
be sure to check out how stuff works dot com
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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