This Is How Inflation Has Personally Impacted Biden's Net Worth

Forbes

President Joe Biden borrowed at least $50,000 against a line of credit on his vacation home last year, according to his annual financial disclosure, which the White House released on May 15.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/05/15/biden-borrowed-at-least-50000-via-home-equity-loan-new-disclosure-reveals/?sh=597eaabb70ef  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hi everybody, I'm Brittany Lewis

00:05 with Forbes Breaking News.

00:06 Joining me now is my colleague,

00:07 Forbes staff writer, Zach Everson.

00:09 Zach, thanks for coming back on.

00:11 - Thanks for having me back on Brittany.

00:14 - The White House released President Biden's

00:16 annual financial disclosure last week,

00:18 and you did the honors of digging into it for us.

00:21 So first you pointed out inflation

00:23 is not only impacting the average American,

00:26 it's also impacting the Biden family, how so?

00:29 - Yeah, yeah, middle-class Joe has a variable,

00:32 a loan against a line of credit on his house

00:35 that has a variable interest rate.

00:37 So he, along with everybody else,

00:39 as interest rates go up, you know, that hurts him as well.

00:43 - So you found out that the Bidens took out

00:45 a $250,000 home equity loan

00:48 on the Rehoboth Beach House in 2022.

00:50 That year they borrowed against it, as well as 2023.

00:54 How much did they borrow?

00:55 - So the first year they reported taking out

00:58 somewhere between 15,000 and 50,000.

01:01 And then in 2023, it was somewhere between

01:03 100,000 and 250,000.

01:06 You know, as a reporter, and I think anybody

01:08 who cares about ethics in government,

01:10 one of the problems is that these reports

01:13 just require candidates and officials to report

01:16 within broad ranges.

01:17 So it's very difficult to tell whether it went up 50,000

01:21 or whether he borrowed 200,000,

01:24 which would certainly be quite a different story there.

01:26 But we do not know for sure.

01:28 I reached out to the White House.

01:29 They declined to provide any more details

01:31 than what was in the report.

01:33 - And is there any indication

01:34 as to why he borrowed this money?

01:36 - It seems to be in a pattern of ongoing behavior.

01:39 It seems to be how he's run his finances for years

01:42 and that he has some very nice homes right now

01:45 that we value.

01:45 And I think it was about a combined $7 million

01:48 when we last looked at his net wealth.

01:50 And, you know, it's a good way

01:52 to get some money out of those.

01:53 It's not different than many, many other Americans

01:56 who take similar loans.

01:58 - Aside from borrowing against the Beach House,

02:00 do the Bidens have any other debts?

02:02 - Yeah, they have a couple other loans.

02:06 They have some debts, a term loan

02:09 and loans against their life insurance

02:10 that total just 25 to $65,000.

02:14 Their biggest loan though remains a 30-year mortgage

02:16 on their house in Wilmington,

02:18 which is somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000.

02:22 So again, we're looking at this really broad range.

02:25 And because of that,

02:26 it makes it difficult to come up with a sum,

02:28 you know, did Joe Biden's debts go up?

02:30 Did he borrow more last year?

02:32 You can't really tell

02:33 because of the way those ranges are set.

02:34 You know, a little increase of a dollar

02:36 could bump them up a massive reporting range.

02:39 So it's tough to say, to get an overall picture

02:41 just based on this document.

02:43 - So as you said, they have a nice real estate portfolio,

02:46 nice houses, Forbes estimates at $7 million.

02:50 So talk about how much their other assets are worth.

02:53 What are they and how you got that number?

02:56 - Yeah, so their non-real estate assets

02:59 are worth somewhere between 1 million and $2.6 million,

03:03 between 700,000 and 1.6 million of that is in cash.

03:07 The president reported having a variable annuity,

03:10 which invests in a bunch of different mutual funds

03:12 and that's worth more than 135,000.

03:15 And then they have six life insurance policies

03:17 that are valued between 62,000 and again, 230,000.

03:20 So again, we're looking at that really broad range.

03:23 Most of his retirement though

03:24 is locked up in his government pension.

03:25 He's been a career government employee

03:27 for with the exception of a few years.

03:29 So he is getting a hefty pension there.

03:31 He's getting about $250,000 a year via his pension.

03:35 And that does not need to be reported

03:37 on one of these personal financial disclosures.

03:39 - And he's holding the highest office you can hold

03:42 as a career government employee.

03:44 How much is he bringing in as president each year?

03:46 - President is 400,000 is what the law states

03:51 the president gets paid.

03:52 They also get, I think it's about $50,000

03:54 that they can use to cover some of their living expenses

03:57 that are related to being president.

03:59 Like you can't just use that and say,

04:00 oh, we got 50 grand to cover living expenses.

04:03 Let's go out and buy a big flat screen.

04:05 It's expenses incurred with in connection

04:08 to having that office.

04:10 - And in the past, a little bit over 15 years,

04:13 President Biden has penned two books.

04:15 In this report, in this disclosure,

04:17 did you see that he got any royalties from them?

04:22 - For both of those, he checked the box.

04:24 That was none or less than $200.

04:26 So in both instances,

04:28 he has not reported making any royalties there.

04:31 Now, I don't know the specifics of the book deal.

04:33 I did find that a little bit interesting.

04:34 You would expect that enough people

04:36 would be buying the president of the United States book,

04:38 even if it had been out several years,

04:40 to generate something in royalties, but it didn't.

04:43 But again, it could just be the result

04:44 of the book contract as well.

04:46 - And Dr. Jill Biden is an author herself.

04:49 She also has still remained as a professor

04:52 while serving as first lady.

04:54 Is there any indication of how much she's bringing in?

04:57 - Yeah, so she didn't have to report her teaching salary

05:00 from Northern Virginia Community College,

05:02 but she is bringing in, she did bring in from her book.

05:04 She has three books.

05:05 They brought in a little bit less

05:06 than $10,000 in royalties.

05:09 - And so in total, how much does Forbes estimate

05:12 the Bidens are worth and how much of that is cash?

05:15 - So we estimate that they're worth about $10 million,

05:18 and that is largely real estate, throwing in their pensions,

05:20 and then the other accounts

05:21 that were on this recent disclosure.

05:24 That said, one of my next assignments is to go ahead

05:26 and take another look at the Bidens' wealth.

05:29 So we'll be looking at getting new appraisals

05:32 on their real estate values.

05:33 So we'll have an updated number on that sometime

05:35 in the next, hopefully, few weeks.

05:38 - And I'm sure we will be talking about that,

05:40 but as we know, the Bidens' net worth pales in comparison

05:44 to the predecessor, former president Donald Trump.

05:46 But I am curious how this recent disclosure compares

05:50 to Donald Trump's.

05:51 (laughing)

05:53 - Yeah, so Trump didn't actually file a disclosure this year.

05:56 He requested a 45-day extension,

05:58 which is absolutely illegal and something he can do.

06:01 You know, just as a reporter,

06:02 what was fascinating to me was that Biden's disclosure

06:05 was like 11 pages and three of them were blank,

06:08 whereas Trump's goes on for hundreds of pages.

06:12 It was just very strange,

06:13 and I've focused a lot more on Trump's businesses.

06:15 There's a lot more to report there.

06:17 And I'm used to looking at his disclosures,

06:19 and all of a sudden with Biden's,

06:20 I'm like, "Are there some pages missing in here?"

06:22 But no, everything was there.

06:24 - And what does that indicate with the page disparity there?

06:28 - Well, I mean, obviously, the former president Trump

06:32 has a slew of business interests that go across the globe

06:37 and that are incredibly intricate

06:40 and messy and interconnected and requires a lot of reporting.

06:44 You know, he has a ton of LLCs that you need to report.

06:47 He has many securities holdings that need to report,

06:49 whereas Biden is, you know, simple,

06:53 just much more in line, I think,

06:54 with what an average American would have,

06:55 except for the fact that it is worth $10 million,

06:58 which clearly the average American is not worth.

07:01 - Aside from, I wish I was the average American

07:03 if that was $10 million, but per usual,

07:06 Zach Everson, thank you so much for your reporting.

07:08 - My pleasure.

07:10 (silence)

07:12 (silence)

07:14 (silence)

07:17 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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