US Vice President Kamala Harris has the most probable chance of recreating perhaps one of the greatest moments in the 21st century once again when she becomes the first woman president of the United States (POTUS). Given that Joe Biden has dropped out of the race, and the credible threat of Donald Trump continues to loom overhead, the world is rooting for her, now more than ever. The focus, however, is not solely on the history she might create but also on Kamala Harris’ net worth, which is bound to increase exponentially should she become the new resident of The White House.
Harris has been a history-maker almost all her life. But her biggest achievement so far has been the Vice Presidency. She is the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected to the position in more than two centuries of American democracy — the world’s oldest.
Once she becomes the POTUS following the 2024 US Presidential election – which many believe she is certain to win based on multiple opinion polls that show her leading Trump – Harris will be the first woman and the first South Asian American to do so. She will also be the second Black American after former US President Barack Obama to be appointed to the position.
With all this happening, the interest in her personal life and net worth are understandable. Harris is married to Doug Emhoff, who was a Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer when they met. He was a managing partner at Venable LLP but left his lucrative career after Harris became Vice President and became a teacher of law at Georgetown University.
As for her net worth, irrespective of her current fortune, Kamala Harris, who was on the World’s Most Powerful Women list by Forbes in December 2023, will become richer by several millions of dollars once she becomes the POTUS — just like those before her.
Several reports suggest that before they entered The White House, the Obamas had a net worth of only USD 1.8 million. Their net worth is now over USD 70 million. Similarly, former US President Bill Clinton, alongside his wife Hillary Clinton, earned over USD 240 million from 2001 to 2015, according to research by Forbes. They have a current net worth of around USD 120 million.
As for former presidents, the late George H.W. Bush, his son George Bush and Donald Trump, each came from wealth before occupying The White House. In fact, every president of the US since 1929 has been a multi-millionaire.
Kamala Harris was born on 20 October 1964 in Oakland, California, to highly educated parents — Shyamala Gopalan and Donald J. Harris. Her mother, who was from Tamil Nadu, India, was a biologist known for her work on the progesterone receptor gene, which helped in the advancement of breast cancer research and oncology as a whole. Harris’ father, who is a Jamaican American of Afro-Jamaican ancestry, is a professor of economics (emeritus) at Stanford University. Both her parents are PhD holders from the University of California, Berkeley, which is where they first met.
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Harris has a sister, Maya, who is an American lawyer and public policy advocate. Maya Harris worked with Hillary Clinton on the latter’s 2016 presidential campaign and was the chair of her sister’s presidential bid in 2020. Maya’s husband, Tony West, is a former United States Assistant Attorney General who served in the Obama administration. He is currently the Senior Vice President and chief legal officer of Uber.
Kamala Harris graduated from Howard University in 1986 and earned a degree in law from UC Hastings in 1989. She cleared the bar exam a year later, on her second attempt.
Subsequently, she joined the Alameda County district attorney’s office where she gained experience in handling cases involving serious crimes. According to a May 2024 article on her by Forbes, she was also appointed to two state commissions in the mid-1990s by the then-speaker of the California State Assembly, Willie Brown, who she dated briefly.
She returned to the San Francisco district attorney’s office in 1998 but left quickly because of the manner in which it was being run at the time. In 2003, after a few years in city administration, she decided to run for the office of the San Francisco district attorney and emerged victorious, becoming the first person of colour to be elected to the office.
Thus began her long and historic term as San Francisco district attorney, during which she won the election to the office once more in 2007.
In 2010, Harris ran and won the election for the Attorney General of California as a Democratic Party candidate. In doing so, she became the first woman, the first African American and the first South Asian American to hold the office. She repeated the feat once more in 2014.
When Senator Barbara Boxer, who had been a US Senator from California for over 20 years, announced in 2015 that she would not contest the next elections, Harris threw her hat in the ring. She was the top contender for the 2016 California Senate election held concurrently with the US presidential election. Harris won by a landslide, but there was little reason to celebrate as the authoritarian Republican leader Donald Trump won the presidential election to become the 45th POTUS.
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In 2019, Harris announced she would run for the office of the US president. Though her campaign failed and she dropped out of the race, the Democratic Party’s top contender Joe Biden picked her as his running mate. They defeated Trump and Vice President Mike Pence in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
As such, Harris became the first woman to occupy Number One Observatory Circle — the official home of the US Vice President.
According to Forbes, Kamala Harris has a net worth of around USD 8 million in 2024. However, the figure includes the wealth of her husband, Doug Emhoff.
The publication estimated her net worth at USD 7 million in 2021 and USD 6 million in 2019, the year she announced her candidature for The White House as Democratic Party leader. In both cases, Emhoff’s wealth was included.
Let’s first talk about the salary Kamala Harris receives as the vice president of the United States. Her current pay is USD 235,100 per annum. Unlike the salary of the POTUS, the salary of the vice president is not outlined by the Constitution. As such, it changes according to the cost of living.
The salary of the vice president was last increased during the Trump administration. The aim was to raise the salary from the 2010 level of USD 230,700 to USD 243,500. But it was raised by only 1.9 per cent after the Democrats opposed the original plan.
Besides the salary, Harris, as vice president, receives the same retirement benefits accorded to other federal employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).
Once Harris becomes the 47th POTUS, she will see a major salary jump. In line with Congress’s approval in 2001, the US president draws a salary of USD 400,000 per annum, besides all the other amenities such as free housing, food, travel and security. The president is also entitled to USD 50,000 for expenses, USD 19,000 for entertainment, and access to a USD 100,000 non-taxable travel account.
Before the 2001 raise, the US president had been drawing a salary of USD 200,000 for the previous 30 years. Interestingly, Bernie Sanders, who was the final contender against Biden in the 2020 US Democratic Party presidential race, was on the Committee on Government Reform chaired by Dan Burton that took the decision to raise the president’s pay in 2001.
As the 47th US president, Harris will occupy The White House. She will also move around in the presidential state car, nicknamed ‘Beast,’ which is renowned as possibly the most secure car in the world.
It is not clear how much Kamala Harris earned before she became San Francisco’s DA in 2003. Her initial pay, according to Forbes, was USD 140,000. It increased by USD 60,000 to USD 200,000 by the time she left in 2010 to assume office as the attorney general of California.
As the California AG, her salary was USD 159,000. But Forbes estimated that she received two pensions for her time in local and state offices which are now worth around USD 1 million.
When she became a senator in 2016, Harris started earning USD 174,000 per annum as salary that senators were entitled to. At that point, she had somewhere between USD 250,000 and USD 500,000 in a savings account. She also held a similar amount as investments in retirement accounts and also had her pensions. Harris took office as the vice president of the US on 20 January 2021. Thus, her salary income as a senator is till a day before.
She will start receiving the California state pensions by the end of 2024 once she turns 60. The pension amount is an estimated USD 8,200 per month. Her federal pension will begin in 2026 if she is no longer the vice president in 2025. This figure depends on the length of service in public office. For instance, Joe Biden is set to earn a pension of USD 413,000 per annum — more than his salary as US president — because he has been in public office for over 40 years. On the other hand, former Vice President Mike Pence reportedly receives USD 85,000 per annum as pension.
Also, before she assumed office as vice president, Harris earned more than USD 500,000 from the sale of books written by her.
Much of Kamala Harris’ million-dollar net worth is attributed to her husband, Doug Emhoff. According to Forbes, their combined assets include cash, index funds, bonds and pensions besides homes.
They own a multi-million dollar home in Los Angeles, whose increased valuation is, as Forbes said in its estimate, the reason behind the increase in their net worth. This house was bought by Emhoff in 2012. Following his marriage to Harris in 2014, he transferred the property to a trust that bore both their signatures.
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The house measures around 325 square metres and is located in the Brentwood neighbourhood of Los Angeles. The house has four bedrooms and a pool. It is close to the Getty Center and, therefore, had to be evacuated during the 2019 wildfire incident dubbed Getty Fire. It, however, remained undamaged.
The property’s current value is over USD 4.4 million. According to Forbes, it has a USD 2 million mortgage which was taken out in 2020. But Harris and Emhoff will have to pay only the interest till 2030, and there is a lock-in of their low interest rates until 2027.
In 2017, when Harris had become a senator, the couple bought a two-bedroom apartment in the Westlight complex in Washington D.C. for only USD 1.8 million. They borrowed USD 1.35 million to make the purchase. Located in Washington’s West End — the prominent site of America’s theatre scene — the 158-square-metre apartment with a fitness centre and rooftop pool along with housekeeping and 24-hour concierge services was sold for USD 1.85 million in 2021.
Harris’ first personal property was bought when she joined the San Francisco district attorney’s office. According to Forbes, the property was bought in 1998. Some other reports, however, suggest that it was bought in 2004. Nevertheless, the apartment, in the city’s SoMa (South of Market) neighbourhood, cost her USD 299,000. In 2021, after becoming the vice president, she sold the apartment for USD 860,000 — a nice value for a place counted among the 10 wealthiest cities of 2024.
Besides these homes, Harris also sold a condo in Oakland in which her mother lived till her death in 2009. The condo was sold by Harris and her sister for USD 710,000.
(Main image: Vice President Kamala Harris/@VP/X; Featured image: Kamala Harris/@KamalaHarris/X)
This story first appeared on Lifestyle Asia Hong Kong.
No, Doug Emhoff is Kamala Harris' first husband. But Emhoff was previously married to Kerstin Emhoff.
Kamala Harris is relatively wealthy. Her net worth, when added with the wealth of her husband, is close to USD 8 million.
Manas Sen Gupta writes at the intersection of tech, entertainment and history. His works have appeared in publications such as The Statesman, Myanmar Matters, Hindustan Times and News18/ETV. In his spare ..Read More
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