Well, at least Lincoln is on the fin
Tags: Lincoln, poorest presidents, President's Day, riches presidents, Washington
Worth a cool $525 million – in today's dollars
A story on MSNBC.com lists the 10 wealthiest presidents in history and here’s the surprise: If you want to see the richest, then pull out a dollar bill and say hello to Washington.
That’s right, the first president not only earned a salary that was 2 percent of the total U.S. budget of 1789, his Mount Vernon plantation covered 8,000 acres of prime farmland, and Martha enjoyed a sizable inheritance of property herself. In all he was worth half a million – in today’s dollars.
But what intrigued me more was a link to the 10 poorest presidents. On that list: Truman (the only 20th century commander in chief in the ranking), Lincoln and Jefferson.
Turns out that American presidents found themselves bankrupt at a rate at least 20 times the national average. In fact, eight presidents had become insolvent at one time or another during adulthood, often because of poor investment decisions, risk taking or good old-fashioned living beyond their means (though not in the cases of Truman and Lincoln).
So on this President’s Day, as we read report after report of unfathomable campaign wealth, let’s remember that even some of the earliest presidents had a tendency to live a larger than the rest of us.