The disclosure that Bill and Hillary Clinton raked in $30 million over just the last 16 months came as a shock to many, including MSNBC host Steve Kornacki who said he did a “double take” upon hearing the news.
Roughly $25 million came from speaking fees for the former first couple, and another $5 million to Hillary in book royalties.
When Kornacki, host of “Up With Steve Kornacki” on weekend mornings, brought in NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker to discuss the Clintons’ financial disclosure, Welker told the audience the massive income put Bill and Hillary “in the top 1 percent of income earners.” This downplays significantly just how high in the stratosphere of wealth the Clintons are.
To be in the top 1 percent a person must earn somewhere in the neighborhood of $400,000 per year. Bill Clinton has earned 25 percent more than that for one speech. Hillary Clinton earned 1250 percent more than the minimum to be in the 1 percent club in book royalties alone. Together, Bill and Hillary earned 7,500 percent more than the lowest entry point of the 1 percent of income earners.
With their income, the Clintons are among the elite of the elite, the top .1 percent, a fact which NBC News reported on its website.
Welker said the Clintons’ enormous income “could complicate her (Hillary’s) message. She has argued that she’s a champion of the working and middle class.”
Continuing, Welker said, “The Clintons have faced criticism, as you know, in the past for seeming out of touch. For example, you’ll remember that it was just last year that Clinton said she and her family were ‘dead broke’ when they left the White House. And that’s, of course, a claim that didn’t really ring true for a lot of Americans.”
When Hillary Clinton made the “dead broke” claim in an interview with Diane Sawyer, it was met with indignation from all quarters of the American public.
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