What is Barack Obama’s net worth and salary?

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States and a former Senator from Illinois. Obama is the first African American President of the United States and served one term in the Illinois Senate.

Barack Obama’s net worth is $70 million as of this writing. That is his and Michelle Obama’s combined net worth. For much of their adult lives, the Obamas were not rich. They initially became wealthy due to book earnings about 2005, when Barack entered the political spotlight.

Early Life

Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the only President of the United States to have been born outside of the contiguous 48 states.

Ann Dunham, his mother, was of English, German, Swiss, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. At 1960, Ann met Barack Obama Sr. in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii Manio, where he had received a scholarship. Barack Sr., a Kenyan, was married at the time. Barack and Ann tied the knot in 1961. Six months later, Barack Jr. was born.

Barack Sr. and Ann divorced in 1964, after which he returned to Kenya and married for the third time. Barack Sr. only paid Barack Jr. a visit after returning to Kenya. When Barack Jr. was nine years old, he visited him in Hawaii. Barack Obama Sr. was killed in a vehicle accident over Christmas in 1982. At the time, Barack Jr. was 21 years old.

Ann married an Indonesian called Lolo Soetoro in March 1965. Lolo returned to Indonesia when his visa extension application was denied. In 1967, Ann and Barack Jr. joined him there. Barack was born in Indonesia and lived there until 1971, when he returned to Honolulu to live with his mother’s parents. He graduated from high school here in 1979. Ann and Lolo’s marriage lasted until 1980. Unfortunately, she died in 1995 as a result of cancer.

Barack has a number of half-siblings from both his mother and father.

Barack traveled to Los Angeles after graduating from high school in 1979 to attend Occidental College on a full scholarship.

He moved to Columbia University in 1981 and received a degree in political science with a concentration in international relations. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983. He worked as a financial researcher for Business International Corporation for a year before becoming a project coordinator for numerous New York non-profits.

Barack went to Chicago in 1985 after being appointed as a director for a non-profit organization called the Developing Communities Project. From 1985 through 1988, he worked there. He traveled the world for two months in 1988, including five weeks in Kenya to see family.

Barack started to Harvard Law School in the autumn of 1988. He was the president of the Harvard Law Review while at Harvard. During the summers, he returned to Chicago to serve as a community organizer. Obama worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago after graduation. From 1992 to 2004, he also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

KEY FACTS

Personal Life

Barack was working at Sidley Austin, a Chicago law firm, in the summer of 1989. Michelle Robinson, an associate, was appointed to be Barack’s advisor for three months beginning in June. They began dating soon after and married in 1991. On October 3, 1992, they married.

They finally had two children, Malia Ann in 1998 and Natasha “Sasha” in 2001.

Rise To Presidency

Aside from teaching, Barack was an Illinois state legislator from 1997 until 2004, when he successfully campaigned for US Senate. From 2005 to 2008, he was a member of the United States Senate.

When Barack delivered the keynote talk at the Democratic Global Convention in July 2004, he gained national prominence. He was a rising figure in the Democratic Party from that point on.

On February 10, 2007, Barack launched his candidacy for President. He eventually faced Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. He won the nomination and subsequently beat Jon McCain to win the presidency with Joe Biden as his Vice President.

In November 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States. He was inaugurated in January 2009.

Net Worth And Book Royalties

Barack never made more than $30,000 as a professor and state lawmaker between 1991 and 2004. During this time, Michelle Obama’s lucrative salary as a lawyer working primarily for the University of Chicago hospital system provided the majority of the Obama family’s income.

When Barack became a US Senator in 2005, his income increased to $157,100. Michelle made $273,618 in the same year. Their total income in 2005 was $1.65 million. Where did the additional $1.2 million come from?

In 1995, Barack published his first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” For the first 8 or 9 years following its publication, it was not extremely popular. Following his 2004 DNC keynote, the book skyrocketed in popularity, resulting in a substantial royalties windfall for the Obama family, which was reported as income in 2005.

The Obamas reported $916,00 in income in 2006. Barack’s second book, “Audacity of Hope,” which was published in October 2006, was a huge success, selling millions of copies and propelling Obama’s revenue to $4.2 million in 2007. Their income increased in the years that followed as a result of Barack’s successful campaign and election in 2008. Barack Obama still receives $3.75 for each hardback edition and $1.12 for each paperback. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, royalties were robust.

Barack and Michelle Obama got a $60 million advance for the joint rights to their memoirs in February 2017.

Income History

The table below contains a detailed 15-year history of Barack and Michelle Obama’s earnings between 2000 and 2017. They ceased disclosing tax returns after 2015. We don’t know how much they made in 2016 or 2017. We do know that the Obamas earned a $65 million book advance in 2017 for a number of books and media ventures.

They have made considerably more money from book advances since leaving the White House and are now both highly sought-after public speakers.