Joe Biden: Net Worth & Salary as US President
| Million Euros | |
| U.S. dollar | |
| Vice President Salary (2009 – 2017) | $230,000/year |
| Date of birth | November 20, 1942 (79 years old) |
| Born in | Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States |
| nationality | USA |
| Marital status | married to Jill Biden (since 1977) |
| Full name | Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. |
| nickname | joe |
| children | 4 (Hunter, Ashley, Beau †, Naomi †) |
How Much Money Does Joe Biden Have?
Joe Biden is the 46th US President to be formally inaugurated on January 20, 2021. The Democrat won the 2020 US election, replacing Republican President Donald Trump . In the top US office, he draws a salary of 400,000 US dollars per year. Joe Biden ‘s current net worth is estimated at $7.5 million .
For a long time, the US President was considered one of the “poorer” politicians in Congress and saw himself as part of the middle class. It was only during and after his vice presidency that Biden made a fortune from appearances ($40,000-$190,000 per speech) and his best-selling book Promise Me, Dad ($11 million in sales).
A career in politics
Senator for Delaware (1973-2009)
In the US Senate election in 1972, Joe Biden surprisingly won for the state of Delaware at the age of only 29 and represented Delaware in the US Senate from 1973.
He was able to repeat this electoral success a total of five times until 2009 before he became Vice President under Barack Obama. As a Senator, he earned from $42,500 (1973) to $174,000 (2009)/year during his long 36- year tenure .
US Presidential Candidates (1988 & 2008)
In 1987, the politician already wanted to become US President and announced his candidacy for the office starting in 1988. After only 6 weeks, he withdrew from the race because there were serious allegations of plagiarism against him.
In 2007, Biden also ran for the Democrats in a possible US presidential election in 2008. However, he had absolutely no chance in the Democratic primaries. African -American Barack Obama won the race and became the Democratic front-runner for the 2008 US elections.
Vice President under Obama (2009-2017)
Presidential candidate Obama entered the race for the highest office in the USA in 2008 and declared Joe Biden as his running mate on August 23, 2008. The election was won by a majority of 28 states and Vice President Biden was officially sworn in on January 20, 2009. The election for the second term of office of Obama / Biden was also won overwhelmingly and nothing stood in the way of a second term as Vice President (2013 – 2017). As Vice President, Joe Biden earned $230,000 per year .
Originally, Biden also wanted to run for US President against Trump in the 2016 election, but decided against it due to the tragic cancer death of his eldest son Beau in 2015. He then supported his Democratic colleague Hillary Clinton in the election campaign against Donald Trump .
US Politics, Joe Biden and European History
Following the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, and more than half a decade after his visit to the European Parliament, we asked the House of European History team how both events contributed to European history…
How will the close transatlantic ties described by the future President in his speech to the European Parliament in 2010 be addressed in the permanent exhibition of the House of European History?
In delivering his historic speech to the European Parliament in 2010, then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden opened his remarks by quoting Irish poet and Nobel laureate WB Yeats from his poem Easter 1916 . Written in the aftermath of Dublin’s independence uprising that year, these lines, declaring that ‘ everything (is) changed, utterly changed, a terrible beauty is born ‘, describe how an epoch-making historical event can change the political landscape irrevocably , in a seemingly brief moment.
At the time of his speech in Parliament in 2010, when the world was still reeling from the Great Recession and less than ten years had passed since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Joe Biden saw US-European relations at such a transformative moment. It is interesting, therefore, that in his speech the Vice President referred extensively to history and historical resonance, describing how a shared heritage and value system is shaping the relationship between Europe and the United States of America at such moments of transition and upheaval have shaped. Biden ended his speech by stating, enthusiastically received by the audience,
At the House of European History, we explore many of these crucial US/European historical interactions using objects, images and multimedia. One of the earliest examples in the permanent collection is the impact that the American Revolution of 1776, itself shaped by writers and thinkers of the European Enlightenment, had on European revolutions, particularly the French Revolution of 1789. We also show the mass migration of Europeans to North America in the 19th century, which had a lasting impact on both sides of the Atlantic, a legacy Biden alluded to in his 2010 speech. Looking ahead to the 20th century, the exhibition examines the fundamental impact of American intervention on a war-torn Europe. It shows the United States’ entry into World War I in 1917 and the post-conflict international order shaped by the Paris Treaties. The exhibition also looks at the crucial US intervention in World War II and its role in the reconstruction of Europe and the subsequent process of European integration.
However, as the events of 2020 have shown, particularly in the United States, our understanding of the past is changing rapidly to confront problematic episodes of our common history that have so far been swept under the rug. story is never over. The transatlantic slave trade of the 17th-19th centuries, for example, is a traumatic and shameful point in the interaction between Europe, Africa and the future United States of America. Nevertheless, museums and historians have to deal with this issue.
At the House of European History, the fundamental role of slavery as part of European history, as well as its relevance today, is showcased in the opening section of the permanent exhibition, which explores the nature of European heritage. The dynamic relationship between the United States of America and Europe, in all its facets, good and bad, is thus an integral part of European history. Undoubtedly, as it changes and evolves, it will remain an authoritative story in the House of European History in the future.
President-elect Joe Biden visited the European Parliament in February 2015 as then Vice President of the United States. Is it usual for high-ranking political figures to visit European Union institutions? Why are they coming and what are the key collaborative themes that they are focusing on?
Relations between the US and Europe do not begin with World War II for obvious historical reasons, but since the end of that world conflict, transatlantic relations have deepened in a framework that has encompassed diplomacy, culture, economics, military, social affairs, legislation and many other areas . With the establishment of the European Communities and the increasing importance of the EU’s role in these areas in relation to the US and world politics, the EU institutions assumed a central role as interlocutors with the US.
Since 1995, 29 EU-US summits have taken place where both sides have debated, discussed and agreed on many issues (tariffs, privacy laws, visa reciprocity, international treaties like the Iran nuclear deal, etc.). As part of these close ties, visits by senior US politicians such as Vice President Biden in 2015 and Vice President Pence in 2017 are very frequent, as are many others such as Secretary of State and US Senate and Congress delegations.
As part of the House of European History’s public lecture series, Professor Timothy Snyder was recently invited to give a lecture on ‘What past catastrophe teaches us about future possibility’. What can the connections and engagement with contemporary American historians and their work tell us about the common history of the US and Europe? What new perspectives can you bring to the table?
Professor Snyder’s approach is interesting because in his online presentation for the House of European History and on other occasions such as For example, in his 2019 Europe Day speech in Vienna, the role of the American historian studying European history was characterized as that of an “outside viewer” looking in. The perspective he and other American scholars bring to the debate is that of an objective and constructive critique of European approaches to understanding and remembering the past. Snyder’s message to Europe is clear, both recognition and warning. “You are more than your myths,” he declared in 2019.
While values such as openness, democracy and international engagement as a means of resolving differences make Europe a bulwark of hope for the world, Snyder believes that hope can only be realized by facing an objective and shared history that is comforting but often divisive historical myths are given priority. This view is shared by Snyder’s colleague from Yale, Professor Jay Winter, who in the days before Covidalso spoke in person at the House of European History in November 2019. These two American historians, among many others, offer a unique understanding of Europe’s past that has greatly influenced the work of the House of European History both in the phase of its development and since its opening. Given that these two lectures were delivered towards the end of the current American President’s term in office, it would be interesting to see how future political changes are viewed by American and European historians in the years to come. One of the few positive aspects of the Covid crisis has been the shift to online events, which not only allows us to attract a larger cross-section of international speakers to events,
How does the House of European History work with US museums to show the historical ties between the United States and Europe?
There would be no House of European History without a transatlantic connection. The building that houses the museum today—our home —was originally part of a network of public dental clinics across Europe established by American philanthropist and photography pioneer George Eastman . As part of our early work in researching the history of the building and exploring how to incorporate it into our permanent collection, we worked with the George Eastman Museum in upstate New York.
Another important American stakeholder for the House of European History is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington DC. We have benefited not only from visits and consultations with senior museum officials, but also from the fact that the permanent exhibition has featured many photos and objects from the USHMM’s collection since it opened in 2017. Our colleagues at the Parlamentarium were also honored to host a temporary exhibition from this museum, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda , which opened in early 2018.
However, not all of our hopes for cooperation have been fulfilled. For example, we were keen to collaborate with the National Museum of Emigration on Ellis Island in New York Harbor for our permanent collection, but the storage facilities were badly damaged and made inaccessible in the 2012 Hurricane Sandy floods, making international loans impossible. This museum should definitely be kept in mind for future projects, as it is a memorial par excellence for the points of contact between Europe and North America.
Our temporary exhibitions have also dealt with the American influence in Europe. For example, in the 2019-20 exhibition Restless Youth, Growing Up in Europe 1945 to Now , we showed the importance of American culture, particularly youth culture, in the life of young Europeans after World War II and how it became a kind of reference culture symbolizing ideals of personal freedom across the political divides on the continent. The exhibition’s title, Restless Youth , comes from a report the CIA prepared for President Lyndon Johnson on the wave of international youth protests that swept the world in 1968.
Several U.S. Presidents are also featured in the permanent collection, primarily for their role in shaping the new international order after the momentous historic uprisings and conflicts: Presidents Woodrow Wilson after World War I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt after World War II, and George HW Bush after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism. Then Vice President Richard Nixon makes an appearance in the famous “Kitchen Debate” of 1959 when he clashes with USSR Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow and defends the values of American capitalism in front of an international television audience!
Given the scale of global challenges at the end of 2020, including climate change, rising political divisions and extremes, and the impact of the global pandemic, it appears that relations between Europe and the United States are once again at a crossroads, as Joe Biden envisioned him in 2010. There is therefore little doubt that in 20 years museums will explore and explain the actions and decisions of current and future US Presidents in their permanent and temporary exhibitions. Let’s all hope that history will judge these files favorably.
