Bernie Sanders is worth $3 million and has never worked outside of politics in his entire life.
Maybe that seems like not a lot to the SV types, but it’s far, far more than what most people I know have to show for a lifetime of actually hard work.
I mostly take your point(s), and really... $3m is not a large amount for someone who's worked and been moderately diligent about finances. You don't need to have insider knowledge or bend the rules to have saved $3m over 60 years. BUT... $310/month back in 1950 was a lot of 'savable' income for most working people. Most manufacturing workers in mid 1950s were earning under $2.50/hr - even assuming some overtime, monthly earning might be $500.
Totally understand, and I was doing a bit of hand waving in the original comment. 7% is around the inflation adjusted, long term S&P 500 return, meaning $310/month would need to be adjusted for inflation over that timeframe.
Converting 2020 dollars (because times are weird right now) to 1960, it comes to about $35.50/month. On $500/month income, that's a 7% savings rate.
1: That's not a real source, it just cites celebretynetworth.com. 2: Any particular reason to single him out, considering he's one of the oldest and lowest-net-worth senators? I'd say $3 million is a fairly understandable net worth for an 80 year old who's been in congress 30 years, and held public office for 40. His wife is also fairly successful.
Let’s say Bernie is saver. He could have easily a massed 3 million by his age. This if he had started at younger age let’s say 20. Compounding interest is a pretty powerful force over years . Bernie is not quite a young guy and has been working his entire life.
3 million isn’t exactly a lot of you live within your means and save.
Senators get paid pretty well, have great benefits, and lots of reimbursed expenses. Sanders is also older than dirt and still hasn't retired despite his age. I can't believe he's only worth $3 million.
>Bernie Sanders one day left City Hall and found a ticket on the windshield of his rusty Volkswagen Dasher. The offense: This was the mayor’s spot, and, surely, a cop had thought, this was not the mayor’s car. But it was. It matched perfectly with both Sanders’ image as a scrappy advocate of the little guy and his own shaky financial reality. It was the beginning of the 1980s, and he was approaching 40, a single father of a not-quite-teenage son, renting a sparse second-floor apartment and having a hard time keeping up with his bills. “Not only,” he wrote on his yellow, coffee-splotched legal pads kept in archives at the University of Vermont, “do I not pay bills every month—‘What, every month?’—I am unable to …” His scribbles in barely legible cursive in the margins read like reminders and afterthoughts: “gas,” “light,” “water.”
He was, said Bruce Seifer, a friend of Sanders, an economic aide in his administration and one of many people who know him who told me this, “frugal.” Seifer paused and considered the right way to put it. “That’s a nice way of saying he’s a cheap son of a bitch.”
Maybe that seems like not a lot to the SV types, but it’s far, far more than what most people I know have to show for a lifetime of actually hard work.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rich-bernie-sanders-210000864...