Tim Walz’s net worth is less than the average American’s
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.
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.
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
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.
It’s almost as if the wholesome, good Christians became progressive labor supporters while the degenerate pseudo-Christians became asmondgold, otk and people like mr. beast, and the fucked up christians became maga nazi fascists.
As a recovering Catholic, my experience has been that Lutherans tend to be humble, charitable, and... not weird. Lutheranism puts a heavy emphasis on showing grace to yourself and people around you. I guess without the obsession with sex and shame, you can be a Christian and turn out pretty normal.
There are several sects of Lutheran. Missouri Synod is fucking nuts. My friend grew up in some other sect that found Missouri Synod too liberal.
Ex-catholic here who unknowingly moved deep into WELS Lutheran territory (if u haven’t heard of that one…well, I’m jealous ;)). Sadly, they ain’t all like that. And unlike Catholicism…there’s like a million different Lutheran synods…with rules and culture that vary WIDELY.
Wow, you are 100% dead-on right. Be prepared for downvotes though, because you claimed the existence of good religious people here!
I've met a surprising number of "good religious people", but it's not surprising most people think they don't exist. I think this phenomenon transcends religion though
In the case of good Christians, the one unifying quality all of them have is they aren't loud, and they aren't pushy about it. They live their lives with a set of fundamental values and are always willing to go out of their way to help a neighbor. If it weren't for the symbology in their homes you might never know.
I think it's the same with anything else. If you've never met a trans person who doesn't make enforcing pronouns their entire identity, it's easy to have your perspective skewed towards the obnoxious loud ones you see online. If you don't personally know a cop or a black person, sensationalist stereotypes might be your internal idea of normal about them too. Etc...
Linux users though... we're all pushy weirdos. Not a normal good one among us :)
Actually now that it's been mentioned, have you ever tried Linux on the desktop? It's really good these days. I do not use arch btw, I'm a Debian user myself.
The word for this is fundamentalism. When people believe it's their way or the highway and all others must conform.
However, in the case of trans folk, I think it's a bit different. They're not forcing pronouns on others, just asking that they be shown basic human respect. If you were a straight man, I'm sure you'd get pretty annoyed if someone insisted on calling you a woman nonstop. Sometimes, people need to be louder when they're facing an existential crisis as they are in the USA among other places.
This feels like a "yes, but actually...". That is kinda missing the point.
Not seeing many downvotes. I think people understand nuance more than you expected. :)
I'm loving being wrong!
its in to love carter now so not so sure on that.
Don't forget the good Christians who deleted reddit for lemmy!
I don't follow YouTube shit but what happened with Mr Beast why is he so hated now?
A bunch of allegedly this and that that has not been proven. Allegedly putting people in dangerous situations and then refusing to provide medical support. Having someone on the channel that is an alleged sex offender (charges are being dropped on that one), among other things. Looks really bad, but I would advise coming to your own conclusions as information comes out.
Legal Eagle just did a video about the whole thing as well. I'm inclined to believe his views on the whole mess.
https://youtu.be/W4CePWWN1Xs
Mr Beast went through four controversies in a short amount of time:
::: spoiler Content warning: Sexualization of minors (1) Ava Kris Tyson (former Mr. Beast member) was shown to be a fan of an artist called Shadman that is known for drawing cartoon porn including "Loli" (drawings of sexualized children), and who drew the 8-year old daughter of a Youtuber. Ava bought some of Shadman's art (a non-pornographic piece is seen on a Mr. Beast video), and also made some loli-related comments in the past. It is not clear whether Mr. Beast was aware of this and whether he was also a fan of this content.
(2) There was evidence of the group running a discord with minors in which sexual topics were discussed. Ava was accused of "grooming". Discord chats were leaked and they confirmed the claims about Ava making a lot sexual jokes with a group of minors, but whether this is "grooming" is up for debate, as some consider adults being "edgy" with children not to meet the threshold for "grooming". :::
In response to both of these, Mr. Beast cut Ava out of Mr. Beast.
(3) There is a "Beast Games" show being produced by Mr. Beast for Amazon Prime. It turns out that putting 2,000 people to compete for 5 million dollars in Las Vegas was a recipe for organizational disaster. People had issues getting their medicines and underwear. People were fed low-calorie meals like a small amount of cold oatmeal and an egg spread at irregular intervals. Some people had seizures and the local hospital reported several injured visitors from the games. It was reported that the team invited people of all ages and then made them compete in physical games for which young men had a very significant advantage over the old players that were also cast. You can see an article about this here, and in the comments you can see many players sharing their bad experiences: https://www.casino.org/vitalvegas/mrbeast-shoots-beast-games-in-las-vegas/
(4) A person who has an employee for a short amount of time released a video in which he claimed a lot of Mr. Beast videos are faked/rigged. He also mentions multiple examples in which Mr. Beast broke lottery laws.
Socialistic polices get a bad rap because of the cold war-era communist=atheist association. Theoretically, you can reframe vast social safety nets by the government as citizens (read: also Christians) coordinating charity to be distributed more effectively. This is a bottom-up approach that has the common person's buy-in. The reasonable criticism of the same policies lies in the top-down, legislation by fiat enactment of policy. No different than, let's say, Netflix arbitrarily raising their prices without your input.
I’m definitely out of the loop, but what’s the deal with asmongold and otk? I thought they were just generic twitch streamers
Watch asmongold's recent video in trumps "Emergency" press conference. He sucks Trumps dick so hard, commending his mental clarity, while Trump is just incoherently ranting on the stage.
Asmongold is a right-wing shill through and through. Big incel energy
Asmongold has never advocated for anything Christian and his takes are usual very center-left leaning. You mentioning him is kind of out of left field.
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.
In California, that's buying a house 25 years ago and not refinancing it and blowing the cash on something stupid.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Society is objectively better when the needs of the most struggling are addressed first.
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?
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.
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
For once a guy when the average voter says ‘they’re just like me!’ It’s actually true.
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
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.
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.
They could have left a naked "average" at the end of the sentence and it would have made sense to assume 'appropriate methods'. They could have thrown in an appropriate qualifier do describe the cohort they're comparing him to "most people approaching retirement age."
They chose to say "the average American" which makes the statement somewhere between misleading and an outright fabrication.
If we're going that route you may as well take issue with the word "average" instead of using mean, median, or mode. Because the lack of specificity there is even greater than leaving off the age modifier.
But the whole thing is a weird pedantic exercise anyway. They are reporting using the standard models in a way that makes sense to the reader.
The median is linked right in the article.
For ages 55-64 it's $364,500
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
source
Y'all have positive net worths?
oh man. another thing I have in common with that guy.
To followers of Prosperity Gospel / Unfettered Capitalism, THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE.
Million dollars is nothing much today. One can't even retire with that kind of money. Housing/tuition/health care costs have outpaced earnings.
If that report is true Walz will have to work until he dies. That's dumb. Bernie on the other hand is smart and has made money inspire of his very poor upbringing.
Please don't call people dumb for having less than $1m.
If someone is earning 100k+ and doesn't have to pay for housing, food, medical bills, and transportation (like the governor)but still can't save. Yes that is dumb.
I don't know, maybe he had a lot of debt from when he was a teacher, maybe he gives money to charity. I just don't think it's ok to call people dumb for not being millionaires.
Or, he just has to retire to a LCOL state. Like Minnesota....
::: spoiler Fortune Magazine - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for Fortune Magazine:
::: spoiler The Hill - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for The Hill:
::: spoiler Wall Street Journal - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report) Information for Wall Street Journal:
::: spoiler Search topics on Ground.News https://thehill.com/homenews/4290971-heres-the-average-net-worth-of-americans-by-age-how-do-you-stack-up/
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/tim-walz-jd-vance-finances-money-ad08c67d
https://fortune.com/2024/07/29/us-millionaires-population-ubs-global-wealth-report-china-europe-americans/
https://fortune.com/2024/08/08/tim-walz-net-worth/ ::: Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
Net worth being 330 k puts him firmly above most Americans so what is this
That fortune article says the net worth of an average American is 1.06 million. That doesn't make any sense because the median personal income of Americans if you take out the billionaires is 36,000 per year. The median net worth of American households is 121,000 dollars. So he is three times as rich at a minimum.
I legitimately don't have anything against Tim Walz, and he seems like a pretty decent guy
I just don't like when statistics are completely mislabelled to spread propaganda. And the republicans do a hell of a lot more of propaganda and don't back anything up, but this is basically just propaganda. You can make stats look however you want if you cherry pick them. Let's not fall into the trap. The problem is still the stupidly wealthy rich.
https://patrioticmillionaires.org/2022/02/02/statistics-matter-why-averages-arent-useful-when-talking-about-the-american-economy/#:~:text=The%20average%20personal%20income%20in,hand%2C%20is%20just%20under%20%2436%2C000.
The most honest and useful measure is median net worth bracketed by age, and that's exactly what the article uses. It's not twisting anything.
Net worth isn't net income. Net worth is assets - liabilities. So it's basically the equity on your home + savings(401k,checking,retirement) + whatever you can sell your car for.
The average (mean) is different from the median too. The fact that there are mega rich inherently pushes the "average" (mean) higher than the median.
Median is a better measure of average when there are outliers (like billionaires)
You're both right and wrong. Mega wealthy are a problem, but your understanding of the terms you're using is why you're confused.
1.6 mil is the average net worth of an American in their 60s. 445k is the median though! The difference between the two comes from the billionaire outliers!
Tim is below the "average", but a majority of Americans are. However, half of Americans are above the median, and half are below.
You're right that Average income is 37k. However, average income is not net worth. That's why you're confused.
I’m not trusting anything from “patriotic millionaires dot org”
Edit - also, net worth is NOT the same thing as annual income. That’s a pretty important oversight in your post.
Oof maff hard
This does gloss over the multiple pensions, doesn't it?
Oh you’re right 2 teachers’ pensions basically makes them Bezos and Musk. Same playing field.
That isn't what the parent comment stated. If I had a pension I'd include it in my net worth. It should be included if it wasn't. Missing something like a retirement account or pension (most people's highest value asset) will just allow people to dismiss these figures (regardless of how little the impact would be).
Edit: based upon replies it looks like I wasn't clear in my comment. I'm not saying that including the pension changes the point of the article. But by leaving information out it might give some people an excuse to dismiss the whole thing.
You’re missing the forest for the trees here.
And who lists income streams in their net worth?
Can you explain?
I realize the point of the article is that he isn't some wealthy elite like the vast majoring of politicians. I think if one wishes to drive this point to everyone, one should not leave out details that would allow someone to dismiss it entirely no matter how wrong they would be for dismissing it.
I'm not saying it should be dismissed. Perhaps I wasn't clear about that. I'm looking at it from the perspective of trying to change or win minds. And I think it's best to include a more complete picture even if the additional details do not change the picture much if at all.
They said his net worth. You’re upset about not talking about his pension. You don’t list your pension in your net worth, just like you don’t list your take home pay in your net worth. Your net worth is the total after adding up your total assets and subtracting your debts/obligations.
If this is new information to you then I apologize for my tone in the other comments. The point is there is nothing omitted or neglected. This number is accurate as-is.
I'm not upset. The other commentor might be. But I'm not.
I guess I always thought you included retirement accounts in net worth because they carry a cash value even if it hasn't been cashed out yet. Just like you would include shares in a company in someone's net worth even if they hadn't sold the shares.
Perhaps pensions are slightly different. Everyone I work with who opted for the pension over a 401k includes their pension in their net worth and, to my understanding, so do the financial planners that work with the Union.
A pension is not a retirement account, it’s an income stream. It’s completely different from 401k’s.
It’s not an investment account, it’s payment. The institution keeps paying you at regular intervals after you’ve left. As an income stream it is not part of your net worth, just like folks’ hourly wages/salary are not part of their net worth. Social security is another example - not net worth, not an investment account, but an income stream delivered at regular intervals.
The significance is that he doesn't control how his pension is funded. It's not like he has a vested interest in one company succeeding by having a bunch of stock there, and he's been in politics since the aughts. It's refreshing when compared to other congressmen
Oh I agree completely. The problem is that when talking about this stuff in the scope of changing minds, if you neglect information people too easily dismiss it.
No you don’t agree completely. Your income =/= your net worth. If you ask me my net worth I don’t include my salary or anything. It’s the total net worth of my assets. That’s literally all it is. There is nothing being neglected here.
That’s like asking me my take home pay and claiming I was being opaque about it when I didn’t give you my monthly expenses. You asked about my income.
I agree to your last comment about it being refreshing that he's not some elite like so many others. Sorry that wasn't clear.
But pension typically isn't included in net worth unless it's unspent money, and given how small the average public school teacher's pension is in comparison to their expenses, wouldn't you agree it makes little sense to say his pension automatically should be added to his net worth?
A couple grand a month is what I expect a retired teacher to get for their pension. And a couple grand a month is what I expect a retired teacher to spend on rent/mortgage + food + other expenses.
My point wasn't that it makes a big difference (I actually acknowledged that in my comment).
But what was your point, if spent pension money isn't considered a part of net income? If you're a retired private sector CEO, you're probably not spending your entire pension or even most of it. If you're a retired teacher, you probably are.
My point was that leaving details out gives people an excuse to dismiss the entire point of the article. I was looking at it from the perspective of changing and winning minds. People will look for any way to resist changing their minds.
The article explicitly states their annual income, which would include their pensions. As we have said many times now income is not part of net worth. Either way, the income is stated in this article. What is missing that you want? What’s the issue?
Nothing is the issue. I don't want something extra. I'm trying to gain understanding through conversation. Repeating to me that income isn't part of net worth doesn't help me understand. I have done some quick reading and it appears you can indeed include your pension in your net worth calculations. It isn't necessarily just income. Seems different financial advisors handle pensions differently. Just like with a house. Some will include the value of a house in net worth, some won't because the value of the home is not liquid.
Either way that wasn't my original point. My original point was that the upper comment never said that including pension in net worth would turn him into a billionaire. And I was also trying to make the point that a complete picture should be provided so that some people do not simply dismiss the article entirely for one missing detail (as people will and often do use any excuse they can to change their mind).
I hope that clears my position a little. I'm not trying to argue despite what you and others might think.
What is unclear that you would like someone to explain? That’s probably a more productive question on my part.
I guess I'm just surprised that so many people don't view a pension as an asset and only view it as income. After the conversations here I did some reading and it looks like there's not a consensus on whether to include a pension in net worth calculations. That being said there isn't a consensus about including home value in net worth calculations either.
I suppose my question would be how do you define net worth? Would you agree with the other user who seems to define it as assets that can be left to survivors minus debt?
I have always thought of net worth as total assets minus total obligations/debts and would view a pension as an asset.
It’s viewed as income because it’s income. It comes in 1-2 times a month as a relatively modest salary. It’s not an asset because you don’t have it in your possession. You can’t use it or leverage it in its entirety, to treat it as your asset would be wildly unfair and inaccurate as it can be taken away before it has paid out - that can’t happen with an asset. There are ways to lose your pension. If you give me stocks or money into my account you can’t take it back barring criminal action or a civil court ruling related to it.
Your description of net worth is correct but pensions are not an asset. View it how you want, legally it is not an asset and it isn’t treated as one. Every year you’re getting a fraction of it, and that fraction is further spread out over 12 or 24 installments, and you can potentially lose the remainder. That’s not an asset any more than your current job is.
TL;DR: a pension is a job you get paid to do but you don’t actually have to go to work.
Future pension payments are income, not net worth.
Would that not depend upon the pension? In my experience (albeit limited) some pensions have a cash value and you may take a lump sum upon retirement.
If he already received the lump sum then it would be part of his current wealth.
Sure. But I guess I'm just thinking that a retirement account (be it a Roth, pension, etc) has a cash value that should be a part of one's net worth. Just because it hasn't been cashed out yet doesn't mean it has no value.
Just as I would include shares of a company that someone owns but hasn't sold as a part of their net worth.
IRAs and other retirements savings can inherited if the person dies before or after they retire. Pensions can sometime be collected by surviving spouses, but are generally something you only get if you live long enough to receive them and they are not inherited.
The former is something you have (wealth), the latter is something you will get (future income). Kind of like the difference between the value of those shares now and what they could be worth in the future.
So you define wealth as only that which you can leave to survivors? That makes sense. I did some reading and it appears including pension in net worth calculations is something that varies among financial advisors. Some don't even include the value of your home since you can't readily access the value of that.
I've always thought of net worth as total assets minus total obligations/debts. And I view a pension as an asset. But given how you're defining wealth, that makes sense why you would opt not to include a pension in net worth calculations.
Then it’s calculated in as his net worth. The fact that it’s a pension doesn’t change anything. He could’ve won the lottery, it’s still calculated in his net worth the moment the money is in his hands.
2 teachers, military and Congress. I'm not saying they're billionaires, or even that they're closer to one than normal.
Nitpicking his income stream - which is not his net worth - serves no point here. You’re doing a “well AKSHOOALEE” that is not only irrelevant but in service of…what? What’s the point you’re making?
It helps me. I was questioning either the facts or his intelligence, as it doesn't seem like he has enough money to buy/rent a house when he leaves the governors mansion with no income. I was wondering if he gets his governor pay for life or something... I had forgot about other pensions. Scolding someone for giving information you didn't want is how we got Donald trump...
You (and the person I was responding to) didn’t ask anything, you are making an assertion and implied he/the article is being deceptive. That is not the same thing.
That Trump comment is so forced and makes no damn sense. We got Trump because people can’t ask questions (which again you didn’t even do)? Give me a break. What does that even mean?
At no point did anyone say the article was deceptive, just that it didn't dive very deep into the pension. Probably the writer just doesn't know much about them. Which is sad. Journalists used to be allowed the time to learn up on things for an article. So you are defending the article from a perceived complaint that no one made. You just don't want to hear anything bad about the article you liked. Just like trump was never told he did anything wrong while growing up. That is the connection. Don't put you head in the sand, the article missed some useful detail, someone pointed it out. That is all that happened here.
Ok you’re right have a good rest of your weekend
It's a different retirement method than the average American that has to save up a shit ton in 401k assets.
Yes but a pension is not part of net worth and a 401k is.
Sure, but when you're taking about Americans at retirement age, net worth is important because it allows you to retire comfortably. That's why they tie together in most folks mind instead of focusing on pure income or net worth. He's got a reason to have a lower net worth and still be comfortable.
Ok?
So you understand why the framing is valuable but want to be a pisser about it anyway?
The discussion is about net worth and the article explicitly states their annual income which includes the pension. I don’t understand the issue. What’s not being included? What’s being omitted? What is the problem? What do you want to see differently?
The article talks about nest eggs and compares him to people in his age group while obliquely talking about his income. It's relatable to retirement planning and that's why pensions are important. They're explicitly income you don't have to work for and a form of building a nest eggs. It's important to talk about them in this context.
This has shifted to a clearly bad faith or at least wildly stubborn argument. All of the info is presentend clear as day including income. There is nothing nefarious happening. You are being ridiculous.
Yeah he and his wife both have a teachers pensions, so what? They earned it working as teachers their whole lives. We should bring real pensions back for every American anyway, not this 401k shlock.
They did and we should.
Only the portion of a pension income that is not spent is included as a part of net worth. Given the average expenses of a 60 year old and the piss poor pension of the average schoolteacher, I imagine there would hardly be any money of his pension that isn't spent and is considered part of his net worth, no?
If I had an investment account that would give me $10k per year, it would be worth about $125k. If I was entitled to $10k a year through a pension, wouldnt it be fair to say that entitlement is an asset that's worth (at least a portion of) that same value?
Is that money being spent, or saved? If it's being spent in a year on regular expenses, how would that contribute to net worth?
Most peoples' pension is spent, not saved, because it's meant to replace their working income in order to allow them to pay the bills. In Walz' case, is it at all similar to the example you gave? Like come on, let's not enter fluentinfinance levels of hypotheticals.
The debate isn’t whether the money is equal to something invested, income is simply not calculated in net worth. A pension is income.
The article also states their household income, which would include said pension. Nothing is obfuscated here.
Maybe not the best idea to put people in charge that are obviously bad with money.
Wow, this is the best you got?
Love this logic. The dude is just a normal dude. He didn't exploit his position and shake every penny he could out of his charges. So he's bad with money.
Get a grip dude.
There is a huge difference in "exploiting his position" and being financially illiterate.
Not in the US. That's how people get ridiculously rich. 100% of the time. Every time.
85% of millionaires are self made, received no inheritance, average age 50ish, and accomplished this feat by investing over 25-30 years in blue chip companies. It's basic financial literacy.
Yeah no man. That isn't basic knowledge. That was never taught to any of us. I'm sure it was if you were born with a silver stick up your ass. Being lazy is what those people do best. Soft hands and all you know. But for the rest of us, the wage slaves. Investing is something boomers like to scream about incoherently. Not a real thing in our world. We're too busy paying bills and eating occasionally.
When i started learning about investing i lived in a crackhouse and am descended from a long line of poor white trash. Some people create results and others create excuses. Which are you going to be?