The all-American working man demeanor of Tim Walz—Kamala Harris’s new running mate—looks like it’s not just an act.
Financial disclosures show Tim Walz barely has any assets to his name. No stocks, bonds, or even property to call his own. Together with his wife, Gwen, his net worth is $330,000, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal citing financial disclosures from 2019, the year after he became Minnesota governor.
With that kind of meager nest egg, he would be more or less in line with the median figure for Americans his age (he’s 60), and even poorer than the average. One in 15 Americans is a millionaire, a recent UBS wealth report discovered.
Meanwhile, the gross annual income of Walz and his wife, Gwen, amounted to $166,719 before tax in 2022, according to their joint return filed that same year. Walz is even entitled to earn more than the $127,629 salary he receives as state governor, but he has elected not to receive the roughly $22,000 difference.
“Walz represents the stable middle class,” tax lawyer Megan Gorman, who authored a book on the personal finances of U.S. presidents, told the paper.
Tim Walz barely has any assets to his name. No stocks, bonds, or even property to call his own. Together with his wife, Gwen, his net worth is $330,000
They need to fucking run with this in their programming. It’s such a powerful contrast to billion dollar baby and Peter Thiel’s plaything. He is demonstrably not in it for the money. He’s just a guy, trying to improve people’s lives and that’s it.
They’ll spin it that he’s so poor that he is incompetent or just going for VP for the paycheck will “billionaire” Trump is a good business man and doesn’t need the paycheck at all. But it will probably backfire cuz that just makes Walz relatable AF, especially to younger or more rural voters.
“He’s just a guy doing work for MONEY!!! He doesn’t care about the JOB!!! He just shows up for a paycheck!!! He hates the American people, because as vice-president they’re his BOSS!!! He hates his BOSSES!!! Not like Donald Trump! Trump only hates people who aren’t white! But he hates people equally, regardless of their job!”
“Whoa! This Walz guy sounds just like me! I only do my job for the money too! And I hate my boss! My company used to be so much bigger until my bosses fucked everything up! Blockbuster used to be HUGE!”
“You work at a Blockbuster Video? Like the video tape rental place???”
“Yeah!”
“Where even IS a Blockbuster anymore??? I thought they all went out of business…”
“In Alaska. We don’t have internet up here, so nobodys heard of Netflix.”
“You live in Alaska? I’m not sure you even CAN vote in a USA election. That’s part of Russia, man!”
“What? No it’s not.”
“It used to be! And that means Russia can take it back anytime Putin wants.”
“That’s…not how that works…”
“Tell that to Ukraine! They’re invading Russia right now.”
“I mean…yeah, ok, they are, but only in self defense of a war that’s been going on for 2 years prior.”
“And that war started because Ukraine didn’t just hand themselves over back to Russia. As they’d previously been.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And you work for Blockbuster.”
Would have thought someone his generation owned the house they bought for 50 years ago for $1,000 or something.
He sold the house when he was ejected governor.
ejected governor
I know it’s a typo, but the mental image of him being ejected from a plane and parachuting down into his new office is just badass
I’m going to leave it because you’re right.
Military retirement benefits and teachers pensions mean you don’t have to save a ridiculous 401k. Your average American wishes they had that freedom. Not a dig on Walz, just a dig on our retirement and healthcare system.
Yep. This.
All those pensions and lifetime benefits are worth a lot in financial planning and means you aren’t slaving as hard to build the large nest egg required to actually have a hope of retiring. They put their years of service in to get those benefits. It’s always amazing to me how much having those benefits in someone’s back pocket changes their perspective, it’s a freedom that most Americans will never know.
Do they not count the present value of an annuity when calculating net worth? Seems like a major oversight.
Journalism is all but dead. 6 conglomerates own 95% of our media and now “journalists” P-hack whatever data fits the narrative they are told to push.
Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations
- George Orwell
The article isn’t even counting Vance’s real estate as part of his net worth so I’m not expecting them to be too thorough.
You forgot about his 12 years in congress.
How do I have a higher (barely) net worth than Tim Walz? I smoke weed all day and write okay-ish python code. This guy is probably about to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. I am a faceless nobody in a corporation.
I’m not complaining. Working class people should run this fucking country. It’s actually nice to be surprised about this.
Perhaps it’s because our society values certain professions much more than others, particularly those in the social/educational sector, which are particularly undervalued. IMO, we need to put everything on the table and reconsider what we want to be considered as useful work for society.
I’m sorry, 1 in 15 Americans is a millionaire?? Holy shit.
Regional cost of living, and the inflation around it, really skews those numbers. A million in San Francisco or Manhattan is very different than a million in the middle of the country. Housing and pay are a lot higher in the major metros.
I’d love to see what these numbers look like when adjusted for CoL.
In California, that’s buying a house 25 years ago and not refinancing it and blowing the cash on something stupid.
1:15 has a net worth of a million. That includes all possessions, pensions, etc.
Treasure a retiree with a house that’s worth a couple hundred grand, throw in their 401k, vehicles, etc and it adds up.
Look at it this way: my car is probably worth about 20 grand, but that doesn’t mean I have that much cash. Ask me to cough up an unexpected $500 and it’s gonna hurt.
At that age yes. It’s the only way a relatively high earner can maintain a similar income out of retirement and they also tend to own their homes.
Oddly enough very easy to accomplish with property and retirement accounts. Doesn’t apply (and probably won’t apply) to most genx, millennials or gen z, as Boomers shit the pool.
My father is quite proud that as he nears retirement, he’s scrounged and saved enough to break into the millionaire’s club! He also voted Republican for his entire life, and now I probably won’t ever be able to retire, so thanks a lot dad! (This is also one of many reasons they aren’t ever getting grandkids.)
Yup! And they wonder why younger people aren’t having kids. Lol
Only if you include their retirement savings that has to cover their aging healthcare costs. If you are earning a pension in your country and have free healthcare then you can’t directly compare American salaries and networth.
It gets further muddled when you factor in how shitty American cities have become. Americans have chosen to have higher wages and endless urban sprawl rather than build public transit and make their cities great places to live.
Yup. And that’s for all age groups. According to this link, 28% of 60-64 year olds are millionaires.
TIL my net worth is higher than that of a candidate for the vice-presidency.
Well, it was before the correction this week. 🤪
Huh, hadn’t thought about that. Let’s see… 401k + stock grants + savings + home value - debts… Nope, I’m still well ahead of Walz, even accounting for the correction. I mean, he benefits from living in the governor’s mansion, so his bills are probably a lot lower, but still… If I liquidated everything, I’d come out with more than his net worth, by a fair bit.
He’s the real deal, and it’s very apparent he’s not in this for material wealth. The more I learn about him, the more I like him.
If a poor American with no resources condemns our rigged, crony market capitalist economy, “they should stop complaining because they’re just bitter.”
If a rich American with resources condemns our rigged, crony market capitalist economy, “they should stop complaining or they’re a hypocrite.”
Our oligarchs like the casino they’ve made just fine. Either compliment their work or you’re “free” to shut the hell up and get back to making them money. Of course this will be used against Walz for being a bad capitalist. As if how hard one capitalisms(exploits others) should be celebrated.
It just speaks to our backwards, inhuman, literally cancerous primary cultural value of greed first and only.
The unchecked obsession with profit above all else is bizarre. We’ve elevated basic greed to such a level that it’s considered a virtue, it’s such a blatant perversion of the most basic decency we’re all taught as children.
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1 in 15 Americans is a millionaire?
Presses X to doubt
Dual income homeowners with healthy retirement funds. The fucked up thing is 1 million dollars isn’t that impressive anymore – you can easily spend that in retirement living a middle class lifestyle in the USA. Particularly when you factor in age related medical expenses and elder care.
It’s not like our retirement, healthcare, and elder care systems are catastrophically broken or anything.
Anyone who owns a detached home within 50 miles of an ocean is already at least 3/4 of the way there. Not surprising.
A millionaire doesn’t mean “Has $1 million in cash sitting in a checking account”. It just means your networth is at least $1 million. So like if you bought a shitty rundown starter home you’re half way there. A 401k you can touch for another 20-30 years could get you the rest of the way.
This kinda checks out. I know more than 15 people, and I know a few millionaires. You probably do too, just it’s usually their wealth is in the form of a house.
There are some places where all you have to do to become a millionaire (at least on paper) is to live long enough in one place to pay off the mortgage.
Exploding property process will do that.
Average houses in most cities are at or over 1 million easy.
Not shocking for an older or retired working professional.
It’s kind of true, we’ve had a massive growth in the number of millionaires in the last 30 years in America.
Nearly all of them inherited. Social mobility is a joke.
But we provably DO have more millionaires now than at any point in human history.
The last time I looked up the stats, around 2015, 10% of US households (not individuals) had $1M, and 1% of households had $10M. The symmetry made it very memorable.
According to the census bureau ( https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/demo/p70br-183.pdf ) entry into the top 10% now requires $1.6M, which means that substantially more than 1-in-10 are millionaires. They’re mostly going to be married couples over 55.
For once a guy when the average voter says ‘they’re just like me!’ It’s actually true.
One in 15 Americans is a millionaire, a recent UBS wealth report discovered.
That’s why America doesn’t have healthcare?
The argument I’ve heard from my parents is why should I pay for public healthcare when I can afford my own private healthcare.
Which is so incredibly tone deaf
Not just tone deaf, dumb as fuck.
I’ve had the same argument with my parents and they still won’t admit that they’re still “paying for everyone else’s healthcare” via insurance but also paying insurance CEO’s paychecks on top of that.
“Dad, can you afford to burn $100? Why don’t you go it then?”
Not the same of curse, they would probably save more than $100 dollars a month with public healthcare.
“Why should I take care of my aging parents when I can take care of myself” is the appropriate response to that.
That’s THE Boomer take of all Boomer takes. Big “fuck you, I got mine” energy. And it’s everything that’s wrong with this country.
Because it’s cheaper than paying for your own private healthcare
Well healthcare up here in Canada is kinda fucked up unless your issue is critical. Their point was that they want to be able to skip the line because they are wealthy instead of trying to fix the system. Still idiotic.
EVERY argument I have heard against public healthcare has been tone deaf, statistically incorrect, and driven by gut feelings over kindergarten levels of economic understanding.
In a world of perfect understanding, public healthcare would be a given.
Society is objectively better when everyone is happy and healthy.
Also: regressives have no platform when everything right now is good.
How can they call back to a mythical past when their needs are met better in the present?
Society is objectively better when the needs of the most struggling are addressed first.
You make a funny joke but the answer is ridiculously nuanced.
Yes, corporate greed has led to unprecedented profits for the ultra rich, those ultra rich have birthed a new generation of trust fund millionaires.
Yes some of this profit was from raping the health care system into an endless money farm, but not all of it.
That doesn’t sound ridiculously nuanced to me, that sounds straightforwardly like what OP said.
that sounds straightforwardly like what OP said.
No it doesn’t except to the most ridiculous degree of dissembly, and the full examination takes more time and space than I am willing to give away for free. Only a portion of the trust fund elite are powered by the medical industry, though all industries touched by the same degree of greed produce the same trust fund elite offspring.
Not all cars are toyotas, not all toyotas are cars, but some toyotas are cars. That is nuance, learn it.
It’s you who has the logic the wrong way around. The rich profiting from the healthcare system is why the healthcare system is bad, that doesn’t exclude them from profiting from other things too. In your analogy OP’s statement equates to “this Toyota is a car” (or “this car is a Toyota” depending on which thing is the rich and which thing is ruining a societal good).
Go away sealion…
Oh, I see, you aren’t actually interested in nuance, just trolling
I know a lot of people, I’m inclined to believe the “1 in 15” thing is flagrantly untrue or working off of leveraged assets.
I’m guessing that is based on savings + asset value (house and car) + retirement funds + individual stock investments.
1 in 15 people with a half million dollar house and a half million dollar 401k? That’s what? 25 million Americans? There’s over 100 million people in the US over the age of 50. Seems pretty reasonable for 1 in 4 in that age range to have own their house and have a nice retirement fund.
I think that figure is because of people in NYC, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, et cetera, where they are absolutely not, like, independently wealthy or anything, but are technically millionaires because rent is 35 thousand dollars a week for 3 square foot apartment with no pets, no windows, and a communal bathroom where the landlord spits in your mouth instead of providing a sink.
Got off the rails there at the end. Rent prices are pissing me off lately. Point remains largely unchanged, though. Lol
Luxury. We would live in a cardboard box, all fifteen of us and only be able to wash if it was raining, have to eat poison with our ramen and pay eighty thousand a day. You’ve had it easy.
Oh that was an example of others. We had it really tough. Lived in a septic tank, covered by tarpoline. Every morning dad would wake us up at 2am to go down mill and work for a quarter a day, and when we got home he’d feed us cold poison and beat us to sleep
Do you think you know an unbiased sample of people?
Google Schelling’s model of segregation.
If you know 14 Americans who are not millionaires, congratulations!
… with working for a millionaire? Most millionaires won’t be big friends with the lower class
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Their income is right on the median you posted. Is that upper middle class?
Also, they filed together. Does the data count per household or per person? Where I’m from, we pay tax individually.
I’m just as confused as before…
Did you actually read the text? It is using the median.
You also seem to be confusing net worth with income.
I can’t wait for him to get his first book deal for millions and watch republicans suddenly care how much money a politician has.
They’re just mad because they have to buy and store each other’s books by the millions in order to pretend anyone actually reads them
Yeah, but he does have that baby blue 1979 International Harvester Scout. That thing is a collector’s item.
Can’t put a pricetag on that!
#ScoutLife
The average net worth is skewed by a rich minority and WAY richer super minority. Let’s see the median.
It literally says in the post that his net worth is roughly equal to the median.
I get irritated to an irrationally high degree when someone literally only reads the headline and decides right then what their opinion is and that it needs to be shared with the world. Like they wouldn’t even have had to check out the link, it’s right in the post.
Median for his age
Of course it’s age adjusted. What good does it do to compare accumulated wealth between a 60 year old and an 18 year old?
It’s incongruent with the headline. “The average American” is not the same population as “the average member of the ‘pull up the ladder’ generation.”
Not really. To do a cross generational comparison, you would look at average wealth of 18-25 year olds in the 80’s to compare it to today’s cohort in that age bracket to show age adjusted disparity. But comparing the average 60 year old to an 18 year old doesn’t mean much when one has had 42 more working years and the other has greater future earning potential.
You can’t just bait-and-switch the headline. Don’t say “these things are equivalent” and then turn around and say “it doesn’t make sense to compare these things.”
The defacto standard for economists recording and reporting average and median net worth has been to bucket it by age cohort for at least the last seventy years. Using common meanings of the terms isn’t baiting and switching it intending to deceive or bury the lede.
The median is linked right in the article.
For ages 55-64 it’s $364,500
Let’s see the median.
The average American family has a $1.063 million net worth, according to Federal Reserve data. But the median net worth is $192,900.Jul 23, 2024
