The 44th and first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama was born into a mixed-race family on 4 August 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and became known all over the world when he entered The White House in January 2009, and subsequently served two terms before resuming relatively private life on 20 January 2017.
So just how rich is Barack Obama, as of early 2017? Authoritative sources estimate that Obama has a net worth of over $13 million, earned partly during his presidency, when his salary was $400,000 per year, but also from his previous tenure as a US senator for Illinois from 2005 to 2008, and his service in the Illinois state senate from 1997 until 2004. Additionally, as president he also had access to a $100,000 travel account, $20,000 entertainment budget, and $150,000 expense account. Barack Obama was also known as a lawyer, writer and actor before his election to public office, which all contributed to his bank account.
Barack Obama Net Worth $12.8 Million
Barack’s parents divorced when he was 3 years old, and the next year his mother married a man from Indonesia, so Obama spent part of his childhood near the Indonesian capital city of Jakarta. At the age of 10 he arrived back in his homeland, and was raised by his maternal grandparents. Obama subsequently graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science and industrial relations. He later earned his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1993, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review, between times having worked in various community projects in Chicago.
Obama then worked as an attorney for the civil rights movement in Chicago, until elected to the Illinois Senate in 1997, plus the main component of his net worth at that time Obama earned from writing two books – “Dreams of my Father” in 1995, and “The Audacity of Hope” in 2006, which sold much better after he won election to the US Senate. His political life in Illinois was particularly noted for reforming health care laws, ethics and tax credits for low-income workers, welfare reform, and subsidies for childcare. These interests characterised his period in the US senate too, and continued into his presidency, in the face of a hostile congress.
If we want to answer the question about how rich Barack Obama is, we can take a look at some of his annual income. In 2004 Obama earned 112,000 dollars as the Senator for Illinois and a lecturer at the Chicago Law School. In 2005 it was 1.6 million dollars, largely from book sales. By 2007 his income was 4.2 million dollars, again largely from book sales, and in 2009 he earned 5.5 million dollars from salary and book sales.
In his personal life, Barack and Michelle married in 1992 and have two daughters; their permanent residence is now their Chicago home.
