The New York Times published a piece Wednesday detailing Bill and Hillary Clinton’s financial struggles in the 1980s — when the couple was making the equivalent of $144,000 today and had a nanny to care for their infant daughter.
(Photo: STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images)
In a piece titled “When Her Family Needed Money, Hillary Clinton Faced Stark Choices,” Amy Chozick writes that after Bill Clinton lost the Arkansas governor’s race in 1980, money troubled Hillary. She “worried about saving for Chelsea’s college, caring for her aging parents, and even possibly supporting herself should the marriage or their political dreams dissolve.”
The couple “stretched their finances to afford” a $112,000 home — the same as buying a $345,000 house today — that was “one of the smallest houses on the block.”
“The sprawling estate of Winthrop Rockefeller, the celebrated former governor, was so close that it practically cast a shadow on the Clintons’ grassy backyard,” the Times bemoans.
(Photo: Steve Pope/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton became a partner at the Rose Law Firm — a job she had for 15 years, but, as the Times notes, is not listed in her biography on her campaign website. Bill was making $55,000 a year “serving counsel” at the Wright, Lindsey & Jennings law firm.
In 1978, during his first term as governor and while she was at the law firm, the couple made a combined salary of $51,000 — the same as making $186,000 today.
(Photo: Kristoffer Tripplaar-Pool/Getty Images)
Then when Bill ran for president in 1992, the couple claimed a combined income of $297,177 on their tax returns — or half a million dollars today.
“When we moved into the White House, we had the lowest net worth of any family since Harry Truman,” Mr. Clinton has said previously.
(Photo: Getty Images)
But don’t worry: Terry McAuliffe, who is now the governor of Virginia, assured the Clintons he would pay the million-dollar mortgage on their $1.7 million, 11-room house in New York when they moved out of the White House.