Biden was born on November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a working-class Irish Catholic family. The Bidens relocated to Delaware in 1953, where Joe was raised and later built his political base. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1969. He served on the New Castle County Council from 1970 to 1972 before winning election to the U.S. Senate at age 29. Weeks later, his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and infant daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident; his young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured. Biden took his Senate oath at the hospital bedside and commuted daily by train between Delaware and Washington throughout his career. He married Jill Jacobs in 1977, and the couple’s daughter, Ashley, was born in 1981.

Biden spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate, from 1973 to 2009, representing Delaware and chairing both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at different points. He mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. In August 2008, Barack Obama selected Biden as his running mate, and the pair won the presidency that November. Biden’s national profile, and with it his post-office earning power, grew substantially once he became a fixture in national politics as Vice President from 2009 to 2017.

Photo: Joe Biden via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

As Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, Biden earned an official government salary while building relationships that later translated into post-office income. After leaving office, he founded the Penn Biden Center and took a role at the University of Pennsylvania between 2017 and 2019, alongside paid public speaking and a major book deal. He launched his third presidential campaign in 2019, won the 2020 election against incumbent Donald Trump, and was inaugurated 46th President on January 20, 2021. Biden served a single term, opted not to seek a second term in 2024, and left office in January 2025, at which point his income reverted from a fixed presidential salary to his existing assets, pension, and property.

Photo: Daniel Schwen via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Biden’s annual earnings have varied enormously by career stage. As a senator and vice president, his income was limited to a fixed government salary. The two years immediately after leaving the vice presidency were by far his highest-earning period: tax returns showed the Bidens took in roughly $11 million in 2017 and $4.58 million in 2018, a combined $15.6 million, driven almost entirely by his book deal and paid speaking engagements. Once he returned to office as President in 2021, his taxable income reverted to the fixed $400,000 presidential salary plus investment and pension income.

Over 36 years in the Senate, Biden’s salary rose from roughly $42,500 in 1973 to the congressional cap of $174,000 in his final years. As Vice President his salary was set at approximately $230,700 per year, and as President it was fixed by law at $400,000 per year. The gap years between the vice presidency and the presidency, 2017 through 2019, produced the bulk of his personal wealth: Penguin Random House signed him to a reported $8 million book deal for his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad,” which special counsel Robert Hur’s report later said Biden netted roughly $12.2 million from after expenses. That income, along with speaking fees, was routed through Biden’s S-corporation, CelticCapri Corp, which reported taking in $9.5 million in 2017 and $2.7 million in 2018. He also gave dozens of paid speeches at six-figure fees, including reported payments of $190,000 at Drew University and $180,000 at Vanderbilt University, and earned over $775,000 combined in 2017 and 2018 through his role at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center. As a longtime federal employee, he also holds a pension valued at over $1 million, with Jill Biden’s teaching pension estimated separately at around $250,000.

Unlike athletes or entertainers, sitting and former U.S. presidents do not pursue traditional commercial endorsement deals, and Biden is no exception. Long-standing political norms discourage presidents from lending their name to brands to avoid conflicts of interest. Biden’s post-office income has instead come from publishing, paid speaking, and academic roles.

Biden has not built a business empire or an active investment portfolio. Financial disclosures show relatively conservative holdings — savings and checking accounts, Treasury bills and notes, and a small number of mutual funds — rather than stock trading, private equity, or business ownership. He and Jill Biden each set up S-corporations, CelticCapri Corp for Joe and Giacoppa Corp for Jill, to receive their book and speaking income, a structuring approach commonly used by high earners to manage tax obligations rather than an operating business.

Biden’s primary residence is a roughly 5,748-square-foot lakefront home on about four acres in the Wilmington suburb of Greenville, Delaware, which has appreciated substantially in value since he first purchased it decades ago. He and Jill Biden also own a vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a three-story, six-bedroom Cape Cod-style house purchased in 2017 for $2.7 million; by early 2025, its value was estimated at roughly $6.1 million. Beyond these two Delaware properties, Biden has not reported significant additional real estate or major luxury asset holdings.