Bill Clinton is an American politician with a $120 million net worth. That is his and Hillary Clinton’s combined net wealth. Bill served two terms as the 42nd President of the United States, from 1993 to 2001.
Due to Bill’s legal expenses, the Clintons were officially in debt when they departed the White House. Bill made more than $100 million in speaking fees during the next ten years. In 2001, he received the largest book advance of all time, $15 million, for “My Life,” which went on to become the best-selling book of all time. Bill and Hillary have made about $250 million in speaking engagements, book advances/royals, investment income, and consulting fees so far. It might be as much as $300 million. The pair has made between $10 and $30 million every year in previous years.
Hillary Clinton disclosed eight years of tax records as part of her failed 2016 presidential campaign. According to their tax records, the couple earned $28 million in 2014, the majority of which came from speaking fees. They earned $10.6 million in 2015, with $6 million in speaking fees. Bill is entitled to a $200,000 annual pension as a former President.
Clinton Earnings:
The Clintons were officially in debt when they left the White House due to Bill’s legal fees and sexual harassment settlement payments. Bill and Hillary have earned more than $250 million from speaking engagements, book advances/royalties, consultancy engagements, and investment income in the decades since leaving the White House. As seen in the table below, assuming they earned at least $10 million in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, they have made nearly $280 million since leaving the White House.
Bill Clinton’s pay as Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas was never more than $35,000 per year before he became President. Hillary was the breadwinner at the time, with a base salary of roughly $110,000 as a partner at a Little Rock law firm. She received roughly $60,000 per year in business board fees in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for a total income of around $180,000, before entering the White House.
Hillary’s income dropped to nil during Bill’s first few years in office, while he received roughly $200,000 in base Presidential salary. Their income increased to $1 million in 1996 as a result of royalties from Hillary’s book “It Takes A Village.”
Early Life:
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas. Three months before his birth, his father died in an automobile accident. Soon after his birth, his mother Virginia Dell Cassidy traveled to New Orleans to get a nursing degree, and he was reared by his maternal grandparents, Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, in Hope. In 1950, his mother married Roger Clinton Sr. and moved the family to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he grew up.
Clinton took his stepfather’s surname almost immediately and legally changed his name when he was 15 years old.
As a Boys Nation Senator, Clinton paid a visit to the White House in 1963 to see then-President John F. Kennedy. This event, along with Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” address, motivated a young Clinton to pursue a career in politics. Clinton went on to Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign service. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, after graduating.
Clinton attended Yale Law School after graduating from Oxford. It was here that he met Hillary Rodham, a fellow law school student whom he would later marry. Clinton was elected class president at Georgetown twice, in 1964 and 1965. He also worked as an intern and clerk in Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright’s office.
On October 11, 1975, Bill married Hillary Rodham. Chelsea, their only child, was born on February 27, 1980.
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Political Career:
Clinton’s political career began after he graduated from law school when he returned to his home state of Arkansas to teach law at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the House of Representatives and lost to incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt by a razor-thin margin.
He next ran for Arkansas Attorney General in 1976, when he was elected with no opposition in the general election. He became the youngest Governor in the country two years later when he defeated Republican contender Lynn Lowe at the age of 31 and assumed office at the age of 32.
Clinton drew national attention with his emphasis on education and healthcare reform. He was rumored to be running for President in the 1988 election. Clinton was ready to run in 1992. He was elected President of the United States in 1992, defeating incumbent President George Hubert Walker Bush and his Vice President Al Gore. He was President for the first time from 1993 to 1997, winning re-election in the 1996 presidential election. From 1997 until 2001, he was president for the second time. He signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the Brady Bill, and extended the earned income tax credit during his presidency. In 1993, he appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, and in 1994, he appointed Stephen Breyer. With a 66 percent popularity rating, he left the White House with the highest approval rating of any President since World War II.
His time in the White House, however, was not without its ups and downs. The House of Representatives impeached Clinton on December 19, 1998. The House had impeached him on allegations of perjury to a grand jury by a vote of 228-206, and he was impeached a second time by a vote of 221-212 for obstruction of justice. The impeachment proceedings were sparked by charges that Clinton tried to conceal and cover up his romance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in an illegal manner. Clinton was eventually acquitted of both counts by the Senate. He is the second US president to be impeached, with Andrew Johnson being the first and Donald Trump being the third.
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Bill and Hillary’s Post-Presidency Earnings and Philanthropy:
After incurring millions of dollars in legal fees as part of Bill’s impeachment defense and sexual assault settlements, they eventually admitted that they had a negative net worth when they left the White House. The Clintons hit the road as soon as they were able to earn as much money as they could.
A book deal for Bill’s memoir was one of the first ways the Clintons made money. For the rights to his memoir, Bill received a $15 million advance, shattering the record for the largest book advance ever. After adjusting for inflation, $15 million in 2001 is equivalent to about $21 million now, making it the highest book advance of all time, narrowly edging out the $20 million Barack Obama received in 2017. Bill’s autobiography, “My Life,” was published in 2004.
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Bill Clinton has been in high demand and well-compensated as a public speaker since leaving the White House in 2001. Clinton receives between $150,000 and $700,000 for each speech she gives. His typical cost is around $200,000. Bill Clinton received $106 million in speaking engagement fees between 2001 and 2013. He earned $17 million in 2012 from 73 speeches given around the world. Many of his revenues came from foreign talks, such as one in Lagos, Nigeria, for which he was paid a record $700,000.
When Hillary’s earnings are added together, the pair has made about $280 million in the two decades since leaving the White House in debt.
His humanitarian activity, which he mostly oversees through The Clinton Global Initiative, keeps him in the public glare. Clinton has primarily addressed subjects like HIV/AIDS and global warming. He has also been assigned several diplomatic missions since leaving office, including serving as the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 and collaborating with former President George W. Bush, then in the Obama administration, to coordinate fundraising efforts for Haiti following the devastating earthquake that struck the country in 2010.
He again returned to the campaign trail in 2008 for the presidential race, advocating and campaigning on behalf of his wife Hillary Clinton. In the Democratic presidential primary, she ran against Barack Obama and lost the nomination. Hillary Clinton ran against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, finally losing the race to him.