We use analytics cookies to understand how readers use the site. They only run if you accept. Privacy policy.
Every subject at this tier is asked the same six questions, fixed before the subject is chosen so the set cannot be picked to suit an argument. The others written for this record are The Output, Reach, Affiliations, The Legal Record and Standing. With this one the base set is complete, so the overlay dives — the ones specific to what this subject has been — are unblocked. None of them could have been started before now.
The same question is answered for Donald Trump and Joe Biden, from documents that fail in different directions.
Back to the full record.
Adjusted gross income runs $5,505,409 in 2009 down to $436,065 in 2015 — a fall of 92%. The shape is not a mystery and the first announcement names the cause: the vast majority of the 2009 income was book proceeds, and book proceeds decline. What is left underneath is a salary fixed by statute at $400,000 since 2001. In 2009 that salary was 7% of what he reported; by 2015 it was 92% of it. The line does not fall to zero — it falls to the job.
The presidential salary has been $400,000 since 2001, set by statute at 3 U.S.C. § 102 and unchanged across all seven of these years. It is the one number on this page that does not move.
| Tax year | Adjusted gross income | Tax | Effective rate | To charity | Charities | Illinois tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | $5,505,409 | $1,792,414federal income tax | 32.6%computed | $329,100 | 40 | $163,303 |
| 2010 | $1,728,096 | $453,770total federal tax | 26.3%computed | $245,075 | 36 | $51,568 |
| 2011 | $789,674 | $162,074total tax | 20.5%computed | $172,130 | 39 | $31,941 |
| 2012 | $608,611 | $112,214total tax | 18.4%stated | $150,034 | 33 | $29,450 |
| 2013 | $481,098 | $98,169total tax | 20.4%stated | $59,251 | 32 | $23,328 |
| 2014 | $477,383 | $93,362total tax | 19.6%stated | $70,712 | 33 | $22,640 |
| 2015 | $436,065 | $81,472total tax | 18.7%stated | $64,066 | 34 | $16,017 |
Effective rates for 2012–2015 are the White House’s own; 2009–2011 are computed as total tax ÷ AGI, by a method checked against those four stated years — see The Rate. The label under each tax figure is the wording that year’s announcement used, which is not constant across the seven.
The vast majority of the year’s income was proceeds from the sale of his books, as the announcement itself states. Seven years later the same household reports $436,065, and the salary that was 7% of the 2009 figure is 92% of the 2015 one. The chart is a book-royalty income decaying towards a statutory wage — which is why the last four years sit almost on top of each other, and why the exact figures are in the table rather than recovered by rescaling the axis.
Announcements read 2026-08-09. This dive belongs to the record it sits inside, and it is one phase out of order — the first deep dive here, shipped before the live log and the intersection cards that normally come first, so the same question could be compared across all three subjects. Money in politics more broadly is owned by Citizens United & the Money.