(NewsNation) — It’s nowhere near what the average corporate CEO earns, but the annual salary of the president of the United States may be the envy of most Americans: $400,000. That does not include lodging at the White House, travel on Air Force One, living allowances, entertainment, staff and much more.
When a president leaves office, the checks and other benefits continue. Here’s a look at some of those benefits, and how they came about.
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What benefits do all former presidents get?
The Former Presidents Acts of 1958 provides for a pension and several other benefits. All presidents receive money for office space, equipment, staff, travel, entertainment and supplies.
If they were enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program for at least five years, former presidents get the same health benefits as other former government workers.
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Ironically, Jimmy Carter, America’s longest-living former president, was not eligible for that program since he was president for only four years and held no other federal government post.
One-term president George H.W. Bush, who was vice president for eight years, as well as serving in Congress and as an ambassador, was eligible for health benefits but declined them.
Former presidents are guaranteed a funeral with full honors and burial at Arlington National Cemetery. But only two presidents, John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, are buried there.
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Biden’s big pension payday
When Joe Biden leaves the White House he will be eligible for the standard annual pension that any cabinet secretary receives: $246,424. But Biden also served eight years as vice president and spent 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware. All three pensions will total $413,000 a year, more than he made as president.
The federal government places very few limits on multiple pensions, and only a few states ban or limit “double dipping,” in which a government employee retires, collects a pension, and then returns to work in another government job.
For example, Burlington County, New Jersey, passed a law banning county departments from hiring anyone who is collecting a “taxpayer-funded retirement pension.”
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A president’s other post-White House benefits
Donald Trump has received more than $3 million in pension, office, printing, travel, and other allowances since his first term ended.
From 2016 to 2024, Bill Clinton has received nearly $13 million in pension and other benefits from 2016 to 2024. George W. Bush has been paid just over $12 million in those same eight years. Barack Obama has received about $10.5 million. And Jimmy Carter, famous for his frugality, has received just over $5 million in that same time. Clinton, Bush and Obama may also receive pensions from other government positions they held.
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Has a president been denied or refused benefits?
To date, no president has ever been denied a pension. The Former Presidents Act of 1958, which established the current pension and benefits system, denies benefits to a president who has been impeached and convicted by Congress. Richard Nixon avoided that fate by resigning. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were impeached, but not convicted.
Former presidents and their spouses may receive protection by the U.S. Secret Service for life. Eleven years after his resignation, Richard Nixon relinquished his protection – the only former president to do so.
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Why do presidents receive pensions?
A few years after leaving the White House in 1953, Harry S. Truman lobbied for financial support. Claiming dire financial straights, Truman wrote to House Speaker Sam Rayburn in 1957 saying he might have to turn to the private sector or some other source beneath the dignity of a former president.
The upshot was the Former Presidents Act of 1958, which established the system of pension, allowances and office expenses in effect today.
But in 2021, University of Colorado Law School professor Paul Campos debunked the Truman “poverty” claim.
“Harry Truman was, as a direct result of being president, a very wealthy man on the day he left the White House, with an estimated net worth, in relative economic terms, of approximately $58 million in 2021 dollars,” Campos wrote.
Campos claims that Truman misappropriated nearly all of the presidential expense account that Congress set up at the beginning of his second term. Truman also, according to Campos, did the thing he claimed that he wouldn’t do: exploit his status as a former president.
“By the time Congress passed the FPA in response to Truman’s various claims that he was at least teetering on the brink of potential financial distress, Truman’s net worth was, in relative economic terms, approximately $72 million in 2021 dollars,” Campos wrote.
