Kamala Harris is not in for much of a surprise when it comes to pay if she gets elected come this November. That’s because the presidential salary has stayed the same since before the 21st century—it last changed in 1999, under the Clinton administration.
Even if it’s no shock, Harris’s potential promotion would come with a substantial pay raise. As vice president of the United States, Harris makes $235,100 annually. The president, meanwhile, gets paid $400,000 yearly. That means Harris could be poised to make almost double as president compared to her run as the veep.
As it stands, Harris is worth around $8 million (alongside her husband Doug Emhoff), according to estimations from Forbes. But most of her wealth isn’t from her decades-long stint in politics; rather, it comes from her L.A. real estate, book royalties, and simply having joint assets with Emhoff, who is an entertainment lawyer, per the outlet.
Even if you get put on the dollar, running for office doesn’t really mean you’ll be raking in the dough. Though, to be fair, the real money comes after a president’s administration, when they tote themselves around to book deal meetings or graduation speeches.
And the real luxury also lies within a waning benefit for Americans: a pension. Harris herself has two pensions to her name from her time in politics, worth slightly under $1 million, per Forbes. Presidents, too, are entitled to a pension, currently worth $246,424 annually, which would boost Harris’s worth as well.
Since 1789, the presidential salary has been adjusted five times. At first, it was listed at $25,000, which by modern standards is worth about $895,700 today, according to an inflation calculator. The supposed intent for a salary was to make sure presidents would steer clear of corruption. “You come in, you have all these rich holdings, but if for some unforeseen reason a storm wipes out all your crops and now you're broke and in debt, you would at least have money to live on,” historian Douglas Brinkley told the Wall Street Journal in 2017 of the impetus behind paying the already wealthy Washington.
