Bernie Sanders can safely count himself as a member of the richest 1%. But just a mere few years ago, he was six-figures in debt and among one of the poorest members of the Senate.
Back in 2013, Sanders had an estimated net worth in the negatives — at nearly $114,000 — according to the political transparency organization OpenSecrets.com. That debt ranked him as one of the two poorest senators in the country, at 99th.
Fast-forward to 2014, and his fortunes quickly reversed, seeing his rank rise to 66th in the Senate with an estimated net worth at $682,518.
That pattern continued, albeit at a slower pace, in 2015 with an estimated net worth at $712,516.
Complete data aren’t available for how much Sanders was exactly worth from 2016 through 2019, but we do know that he has no problem referring to himself as a millionaire.
“I wrote a best-selling book,” Sanders told the New York Times Monday. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
Much of Sanders’ newfound wealth almost certainly comes from the sales of Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, released Nov. 15, 2016, which got him a $1 million advance.
Still, the disclosure of Sanders’ membership in the top 1% proved awkward for a candidate who so often routinely rails against the “millionaire and billionaire” class.
Sanders “believes in opportunity for all, and the fact that he is somebody who has personally benefited from that opportunity is something that he feels should be a shared opportunity with everyone else,” the senator’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, told CNN. “He’s made some money off a book. And I think that the opportunity that he has had is evaporating for so many others. He feels that strongly.”
During a 2016 campaign rally in Wisconsin, before his book was released, Sanders criticized the number of wealthy individuals in a country that also struggles with systemic poverty.
"We have a proliferation of millionaires while we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any country on earth."
— Bernie Sanders, campaigning in Wisconsin April 3, 2016 pic.twitter.com/VMbM4iPHcr— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) April 10, 2019
“We have a proliferation of millionaires while we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any country on earth,” Sanders said.
Despite being a millionaire, Sanders is still far less wealthy than many of his Democratic competitors. According to OpenSecrets.com, Beto O’Rourke’s estimated net worth sits at $9 million, while Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s financial assets are estimated to be between $4 and $11 million.
