How they earned, spent, saved and wasted

Presidents, they’re just like us.

That’s the overarching theme of a new 1998 book by Megan Gorman. All the president’s money looks at the finances of U.S. presidents and presents a wealth of historical facts and figures from the perspective of financial best practices. It is already very popular and is on the USA Today bestseller list.

Arriving in the midst of a contentious election season, the book gives readers an impartial look at these larger-than-life personalities and humanizes them. “Money is one of those things that is really an everyday human experience,” Gorman says. “We all worry about money, no matter how much we have.”

The book combines Gorman’s lifelong interest in history (she studied history at Haverford) and her expertise as a tax attorney and wealth manager who has worked at Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon and is the founder and managing partner of Checkers Financial Management.

“When I read history, I read where someone got married or bought a house and think there are finances behind it,” she says.

For All the president’s moneyGorman combed through the president’s archives, combing through letters, insurance policies and tax returns. She saw the same recurring themes that she sees every day in her clients: who to marry, courage, luck, risk, budgeting and worrying about the future. These features formed the structure of the book.

Gorman examines how opportunity and ability affected presidents’ finances, leading them to either success or ruin. For example: While Joe Biden had an affinity for real estate, Thomas Jefferson once almost auctioned off Monticello to pay off his debts.

Calvin Coolidge was a renter for most of his life and complained that the White House was buying too much for events.

“James Monroe was once so strapped for cash that he had to take out a $300 loan from James Madison to cover the cost of furniture,” says Gorman. “You don’t think the Founding Fathers are going to say, ‘Hey, can you give me a loan?'”

Both Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy came from wealthy families, but Roosevelt was a spender, while JFK was notoriously, as a friend described it, “tight with money.” Kennedy was also one of two presidents who had a record of donating their salary to charity, although he neglected to tell his wife; Jackie discovered in 1962 that he had donated his salary since he was a congressman.

“Many presidents had an interesting wealth technique, which was to get married,” Gorman says, citing George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower as examples of presidents who benefited from their wives’ wealth. It’s an interesting contrast to candidate Kamala Harris, emphasizes Gorman, whose partnership with husband Doug Emhoff is one of equals since both earn their own money.

Gorman found that the best political marriages were between couples who had similar views on money. Nancy Reagan liked to stick to a budget. But “Mary Todd Lincoln went to New York and spent crazy money, and the press reported it,” Gorman says. “She actually says to Mrs. Keckley, her seamstress, when (Lincoln) runs for president for the second time, ‘I need him to win because if he loses he’ll find out how much money we owe.'”

Many presidents enslaved people. After his death, Jefferson’s debts were paid by auctioning off the people he enslaved, thereby dividing families. James Polk was actively involved in the slave trade during his term in the White House, but tried to keep it secret so as not to lose the support of Northern voters.

Gerald Ford created the model for the post-presidency period as we know it today, when former presidents write books, join boards, and establish foundations (or, in the case of Barack Obama, build media companies). Ford was living paycheck to paycheck when he entered the White House and left with just a few thousand dollars in his account. But thanks to his speaking engagements and corporate board appointments, he died in 2006 with an estimated net worth of $8 million.

He made one wrong move: he partnered with the Franklin Mint on a series of medals. It might not seem unusual in 2024 for Donald Trump to release gold coins with his face on it, but at the time it caused a big stir and, says Gorman, “the press tore him apart.”

Who was the richest president? Technically that would be George Washington. When he died, Washington was worth $750,000, the equivalent of $400 million today. But based on the country’s total wealth at the time, he owned 20 percent of 1 percent of U.S. GDP.

“But if you asked me who the embodiment of your idea of ​​wealth was, I would tell you it was Herbert Hoover,” Gorman says. Hoover was a Quaker who worked his way up in the mining industry, from pushing carts in the mines of the Sierra Nevada to manager of one of Australia’s largest gold mines. He was generous with his money when it came to family and friends, and after the world wars he helped save Europe from famine.

Americans have always been curious about the lives and finances of presidents, Gorman says, although they are more cynical today. But “when you look at these people who are set in stone — Washington, Lincoln — and start examining how they lived their lives and what the charges were in their checkbook, you realize that they have a lot more in common with us “I can even imagine it.”