Joe Biden will begin his presidency with an annual salary of $400,000, a sum Bill Clinton signed into law but was never paid. The first president to receive it was his successor, George W. Bush. Clinton is part of a line of presidents paid $200,000 that ran back to Richard Nixon.
The $400,000 is a great deal of money by the standard of most Americans. The president also gets a $50,000 annual expense account, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account and $19,000 for entertainment. The median household income in America was $68,703 last year. Much less than 1% of Americans make over $400,000.
The salary of the U.S. president has been changed only five times since George Washington took office. Washington was paid $25,000, which was the sum paid through the first term of Ulysses S. Grant, a stretch of 18 presidents.
The president’s salary rose to $50,000 for Grant’s second term and ran at that level through the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, a span of nine presidents.
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The presidential salary jumped to $75,000 for William Howard Taft through Harry Truman, then rose again, to $100,000, from Truman’s full term through that of Lyndon Johnson.
Here is how much every president in American history made for his time in the office:
$25,000
George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William Henry Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
$50,000
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James Garfield
Chester Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
$75,000
William Howard Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S. Truman
$100,000
Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
$200,000
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
$400,000
George W. Bush
Barack Obama
Donald Trump
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