What it really pays to be president of the United States
The base salary for the president of the United States is still $400,000 a year. Congress last raised it in 2001, from $200,000. Everything else around the job is what turns that figure into one of the most expensive public packages on Earth.
The residence alone is hard to price. The White House has 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms across six levels. Federal appropriations cover running the Executive Residence and official entertaining; the first family reimburses only some private costs, including food. Camp David, the Maryland retreat used since Franklin Roosevelt, sits on top of that. Blair House, the four-townhouse guest complex across the street, adds another 120 rooms for visiting heads of state.
Then there is the fleet. Air Force One is the call sign for any Air Force aircraft carrying the president; in practice it means the two heavily modified Boeing 747s that function as flying command centres. Reporting over the last decade has put the hourly operating cost somewhere around $177,000 to $200,000. On the ground, the Secret Service runs the armoured presidential limousine and the motorcade built around it. Protection extends to the sitting president, the vice president, their immediate families and, after leaving office, to former presidents and their spouses for life.
The Former Presidents Act adds a taxable pension equal to the pay of Cabinet-level executive department heads. In recent years that has meant roughly $200,000 a year for several ex-presidents, with later reporting putting Donald Trump's first-term pension receipts higher. A surviving spouse can claim a $20,000 annual pension if they give up other statutory pensions.
None of this is the private market for former presidents: book deals, speaking fees, foundations and media projects. Those sit outside the statute. What the public books show is simpler. The cash wage has been frozen for a quarter-century. The infrastructure, the aircraft, the security detail and the pension have not.
*Image: The White House south facade. Photo: Mark Skrobola / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.*
Source: Boss Hunting
