If there’s one thing that we know about Donald Trump it’s that he’s rich. I thought it might be interesting to highlight the richest and poorest presidents. In today’s dollars after Trump the richest were (based on highest net worth):
| President | Estimated net worth |
| John Kennedy | $1 billion |
| George Washington | $525 million |
| Thomas Jefferson | $212 million |
| Theodore Roosevelt | $125 million |
| Andrew Jackson | $119 million |
while the poorest were:
| James Buchanan | < $1 million |
| Abraham Lincoln | < $1 million |
| Andrew Johnson | < $1 million |
| Ulysses S. Grant | < $1 million |
| James Garfield | < $1 million |
At the time of his death Grant was broke. My great-grandfather remembered him selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis.
It’s hard to make a true generalization about U. S. presidents based solely on their highest net worth. Some of the richest and poorest were assassinated. Some of the most beloved were also the richest. Some were among the poorest.
The most populist was also among the richest.
“At the time of his death Grant was broke. My great-grandfather remembered him selling firewood on the streets of St. Louis.”
Uh, that’s misleading, no? He was in financial straits when he died, but he died in New York (at Mt. McGregor) shortly after finishing his Memoirs (a commercial success, btw). His firewood-selling phase was much earlier, just before the Civil War.
I think the $1 billion listed for Kennedy is an estimate of his father’s total wealth. JFK died before his father. Not sure what his wealth really was while president.
Steve
No, his father was richer than that. I think it’s his share of the family trust.
Sam:
Yep, you are correct. One of the reasons I use ‘Grant’ as my main pseudonym is that Grant, despite running a corrupt administration was not himself corrupt. He left the White House broke. Until an editor suggested he write his memoirs. The editor was Mark Twain, Grant wrote and kept writing even as his jaw was being eaten up by cancer – in an era without oxy. The finished book was a huge hit and restored his family finances.
Writing till you die and producing a bestseller? That kind of death lets you go straight to author Valhalla where all the departed writers sit around drinking artisanal beer, complaining about their agents and sniping at each other.
I think Dave’s aside about Grant was that he was poor before he was poor. He got to St. Louis in time for the Panic of 1857. He had left the military, perhaps under the cloud of financial mismanagement and alcoholism, and all he had in St. Louis was land gifted by his father-in-law and he had to borrow money to plant and build a house on the land. I think he still owed the military money at this time and his land was mortgaged. He supposedly paid laborers more than the going rate to cut wood for him. He seems like a person without much business sense, an easy touch for people in need, and for investment schemes of people with apparent wealth and station.
That’s right.