Joe Biden’s first year in the private sector proved to be his most lucrative in at least two decades. He and his wife, Jill, earned about $11.1 million in 2017, nearly double their total earnings from 1998 to 2016, which added up to $5.8 million, according to a Forbes analysis of tax returns. The couple brought in another $4.6 million last year.
The bulk of the Bidens’ big payday came from a book deal and speaking engagements. Joe Biden routed his book and speaking payments through a company named CelticCapri Corp., which took in $9.5 million in 2017 and $2.7 million in 2018. His memoir, Promise Me, Dad, came out in November 2017 and has sold over 300,000 copies. On his financial disclosure report, Biden listed 30 book tour events, which paid him a total of $1.8 million, plus another 19 speaking engagements that provided $2.4 million.
Jill Biden also made big money after her tenure as America’s Second Lady. Her company, Giacoppa, took in about $560,000 in speaking engagement fees.
The Bidens supplemented their income with additional gigs. In February 2017, one month after leaving the White House, Joe Biden took up a role as professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a position that paid him $775,000 in 2017 and 2018. Biden has been on an unpaid leave of absence since announcing his campaign.
The Bidens also donated more money in 2017 than they had over the previous two decades. They gave more than $1 million to 26 charities, including two of their family’s own—the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children ($150,000) and The Joseph Biden Foundation ($100,000). Those foundations in turn have supported programs on issues like child abuse and LGBTQ equality. From 1998 to 2016, the Bidens gave $70,000—a lot of money, sure, but nothing like what they handed over in 2017.
The Bidens released their tax returns from 2016 to 2018 Tuesday after making several amendments related to double-counting and deduction errors. They also initially failed to include Biden’s vice president salary for the first few weeks of 2017, according to Biden’s campaign.
In the decade before Biden took office as vice president, the couple’s total earnings averaged about $250,000. More than half of that came from Biden’s U.S. Senate salary. His wife made $60,000 on average from the State of Delaware. In 2005 the couple earned $81,250 from the literary agency Sterling Lord Literistic. Two years later they declared $71,000 in royalties, and the next year $9,563 in audiobook rights.
As Forbes reported in April, the Bidens earned $3.1 million during the eight years that Biden served as vice president, while the Obamas hauled in an estimated $10.8 million over the same period.
