Do you ever wonder what the salary of the President of the United States is? Well, it’s $400,000 a year. This is a fact that I happily discovered in research for this article. I will dive into some deeper numbers later in this post and perhaps see if there are some surprises to be had as well.
Only one person in the United States has a job where they have to decide how much money is in their own paycheck. It’s a pretty sweet gig: president of the United States. Right now (unless you’re looking at employment numbers from when Obama got elected) the salary for president of the United States is $400,000.
Salary For President Of The United States Overview
The president of the United States makes $400,000 per year. This is a base salary, however—it doesn’t include any benefits or bonuses. The vice president gets paid $230,700 per year. This is also the base salary for a vice president.
The vice president’s salary is paid out on a monthly basis in equal installments throughout the year. The president, on the other hand, receives his salary once per quarter in one lump sum payment.
The vice president also receives a pension for life after leaving office if he or she served at least two years as vice president. The amount of this pension depends on how many years he or she served as VP and whether or not he or she has served as senator or governor prior to being elected VP (the more positions held in government prior to becoming VP, the higher the pension). Pensions are typically calculated using formulas that take into account age at time of retirement and length of service in each position held previously).
Why Does the President Have a Salary?
On top of their pay, the President of the United States is given separate expense accounts, including non-taxable travel accounts and entertainment funds. Upon leaving office, former presidents are given a pension and office space. They have secret service protection. The first ladies of deceased ex-presidents also receive pensions. Factoring in all of those other perks, and the power that comes with the position, why do the taxpayers pay the president directly?
The reason is largely ideological. The rationale, as described by the founding fathers in the Federalist Papers, is that the president’s salary reinforces their status as an employee of and servant to the American public. A president who is not beholden to the people for his livelihood is more likely to act on their own interests. Later generations may further argue that the presidential salary would be a necessity for any poorer citizens to get to the White House. In some states like New Hampshire, where representatives receive an annual salary of $200, it is financially impossible for many to hold public office.
Who Controls Congressional Salaries?
There is no automatic process to adjust government salaries for inflation. Members of congress increase their pay by passing as a bill through Congress. This poses a relatively firm restraint on the growth of executive pay in the United States. The president’s salary has only been increased five times in U.S. history. The most recent occurred under President Bill Clinton, although it didn’t take effect until George W. Bush took office.
Congress also votes on their own salaries. What, then, keeps Congress from fast tracking the federal budget into their pockets? Traditionally, aside from moral compunctions, the external barrier has been the threat of being voted out of office. This was codified in an Amendment first proposed in the 1700s and added to the Constitution in 1992. It reads
No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
Or, in plain speech, Congressional pay increases won’t kick in until after the next inauguration, and so anyone who votes to raise their pay has to answer to the voters first. Also, contrary to what one might expect, pay is equal between the House and the Senate.
Here are the salaries of the other members of government. The salaries listed below are annual as of 2021. They were last updated in 2009 under the Bush administration, and went into effect when Barack Obama took office.
Presidential Pay and Compensation
Effective Jan. 1, 2001, the annual salary of the President of the United States was increased to $400,000 per year, including a $50,000 expense allowance, a $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and a $19,000 entertainment account. The president’s salary is set by Congress, and under Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, may not be increased or reduced during his or her current term of office.
Why the Framers Wanted the President to be Paid
As a wealthy landowner and Revolutionary War commander, George Washington had no desire to be paid to serve as president. While he never accepted a salary for his military service, he was finally compelled by Congress to accept $25,000 for his presidential duties. Washington had no choice in doing so because the Constitution mandates that presidents receive a salary.
In crafting the Constitution, the Framers had considered but rejected a proposal that presidents serve without pay. Alexander Hamilton explained the reasoning in Federalist No. 73, writing “a power over a man’s support is a power over his will.” A president—no matter how wealthy—who received no regular salary might be tempted to accept bribes from special interested or to be coerced by individual members of Congress. For the same reasons, the Framers felt it was essential that the president’s salary is insulated from day-to-day politics. As a result, the Constitution requires that the president’s pay be of a fixed amount for his entire period in office, so that Congress “can neither weaken his fortitude by operating on his necessities, nor corrupt his integrity by appealing to his avarice.”
The Framers were also intent on differentiating presidents from kings by making it clear that any American—not just the wealthy or aristocratic—could become president and that the president worked for the people. In Federalist No. 73, Alexander Hamilton wrote that “there are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils.”
When Congress set the salary of the president at $25,000 a year in 1789, it also set the salary of Vice President John Adams at $5,000 a year, Chief Justice John Jay at $4,000 a year, and members of the cabinet at $3,500 a year. According to computations made by the Congressional Research Service, by one measure President Washington’s 25,000 salary equates to more than $4.5 million today.
On a humorous note, when baseball great Babe Ruth—who was paid $80,000 in 1929—was asked how in the world he dared to ask for a higher salary than President Herbert Hoover’s, then $75,000, The Babe replied, “I had a better year than he did.” And of course, that was true because Ruth had hit 46 home runs in 1929, while Hoover presided over the stock market crash that sent America into the Great Depression.
Chief Executive Salary
The increase was approved as part of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act (Public Law 106-58), passed in the closing days of the 106th Congress.
“Sec. 644. (a) Increase in Annual Compensation.–Section 102 of title 3, United States Code, is amended by striking ‘$200,000’ and inserting ‘$400,000’. (b) Effective Date.–The amendment made by this section shall take effect at noon on January 20, 2001.”
Since initially being set at $25,000 in 1789, the president’s base salary has been increased on five occasions as follows:
- $50,000 on March 3, 1873
- $75,000 on March 4, 1909
- $100,000 on January 19, 1949
- $200,000 on January 20, 1969
- $400,000 on January 20, 2001
In his First Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789, President George Washington stated that he would not to accept any salary or other remuneration for serving as president. To accepting his $25,000 salary, Washington stated,
“I must decline as inapplicable to myself any share in the personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the executive department, and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may during my continuance in it be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.”
In addition to a basic salary and expense accounts, the president also gets some other benefits.
A Full-Time Dedicated Medical Team
Since the American Revolution, the official physician to the president, as director of the White House Medical Unit created in 1945, has provided what the White House calls “worldwide emergency action response and comprehensive medical care to the president, the vice president, and their families.”
Operating from an on-site clinic, the White House Medical Unit also attends to the medical needs of the White House staff and visitors. The official physician to the president oversees a staff of three to five military physicians, nurses, medical assistants, and medics. The official physician and some members of his or her staff remain available to the president at all times, in the White House or during presidential trips.
Presidential Retirement and Maintenance
Under the Former Presidents Act, each former president is paid a lifetime, taxable pension that is equal to the annual rate of basic pay for the head of an executive federal department—$201,700 in 2015—the same annual salary paid to secretaries of the Cabinet agencies.
In May 2015, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), introduced the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, a bill that would have limited the lifetime pension paid to former presidents at $200,000 and removed the current link between presidential pensions and the salary paid to Cabinet secretaries.
In addition, Sen. Chaffetz’s bill would have reduced the presidential pension by $1 for every dollar over $400,000 per year earned by former presidents from all sources. For example, under Chaffetz’s bill, former President Bill Clinton, who made almost $10 million from speaking fees and book royalties in 2014, would get no government pension or allowance at all.
The bill was passed by the House on Jan. 11, 2016, and passed in the Senate on June 21, 2016. However, On July 22, 2016, President Obama vetoed the Presidential Allowance Modernization Act, telling Congress the bill “would impose onerous and unreasonable burdens on the offices of former presidents.”
Help With Transition to Private Life
Each former president and vice president may also take advantage of funds allocated by Congress to help facilitate their transition to private life. These funds are used to provide suitable office space, staff compensation, communications services, and printing and postage associated with the transition. As an example, Congress authorized a total of $1.5 million for the transition expenses of outgoing President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle.
The Secret Service provides lifetime protection for former presidents who entered office before Jan. 1, 1997, and for their spouses. Surviving spouses of former presidents receive protection until remarriage. Legislation enacted in 1984 allows former Presidents or their dependents to decline Secret Service protection.
Former Presidents and their spouses, widows, and minor children are entitled to treatment in military hospitals. Health care costs are billed to the individual at a rate established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Former Presidents and their dependents may also enroll in private health plans at their own expense.