Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. He previously served as a Senator from Illinois. Obama is the first African American President of the United States, having served one term in the Illinois Senate.
Barack Obama’s net wealth as of this writing is $70 million. That is his net worth in combination with his wife, Michelle Obama. For the majority of their adult life, the Obamas were not rich.
They initially became millionaires in around 2005 due to book revenues associated with Barack’s political ascension.
Barack Obama Childhood
Barack Hussein Obama II was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the only President of the United States born outside the contiguous 48 states.
Ann Dunham, his mother, was of English, German, Swiss, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Ann met Barack Obama Sr. in 1960 while enrolled at the University of Hawaii Manio on a scholarship.
At the time, Barack Sr., a Kenyan, was married. In 1961, Barack and Ann married. Six months later, Barack Jr. was born.
Barack Sr. and Ann divorced in 1964, and he returned to Kenya to marry for the third time. Barack Sr. only paid a visit to Barack Jr. after relocating to Kenya. In 1971, when Barack Jr. was nine years old, he visited his son in Hawaii.
Unfortunately, Barack Obama Sr. perished in an automobile accident over Christmas in 1982. At the time, Barack Jr. was 21 years old.
Ann married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian, in March 1965. Lolo returned to Indonesia when his visa extension application was denied. In 1967, Ann and Barack Jr. joined him there.
Barack lived in Indonesia until 1971 when he returned to Honolulu to live with his mother’s parents. He graduated from high school here in 1979. Ann and Lolo married in 1940 and were together until 1980. Regrettably, she died in 1995 from cancer.
Barack is the father of multiple half-siblings. Barack traveled to Los Angeles in 1979 after graduating from high school to attend Occidental College on a full scholarship.
He transferred to Columbia University in 1981, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science with a concentration in international relations. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1983.
He worked for Business International Corporation for one year as a financial researcher, followed by a term as a project coordinator for many New York non-profits.
Barack went to Chicago in 1985 after being employed as the director of a non-profit organization called the Developing Communities Project. From 1985 through 1988, he worked there. In 1988, he traveled the world for two months, including five weeks in Kenya, to see family.
Barack started at Harvard Law School in the autumn of 1988. He served as President of the Harvard Law Review during his time at Harvard. He returned to Chicago to continue working as a community organizer over the summers.
Following graduation, Obama worked in Chicago as a civil rights attorney. From 1992 to 2004, he also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.
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Barack Obama Private Life
Barack began his legal career in the summer of 1989 at Sidley Austin, a Chicago law firm. Michelle Robinson was designated as Barack’s advisor for three months, beginning in June.
They began dating shortly after that and became engaged in 1991. They tied the knot on October 3, 1992. They would have two children, Malia Ann in 1998 and Natasha “Sasha” in 2001.
Barack Obama Net Worth and Book-Related Earnings
Barack never earned more than $30,000 for his employment as a professor and state lawmaker between 1991 and 2004. The Obama family’s income was mostly derived from Michelle’s substantial pay as a lawyer working primarily for the University of Chicago medical system.
Barack’s salary increased to $157,100 in 2005 when he was elected to the US Senate. Michelle made $273,618 in the same year. In 2005, they earned a total of $1.65 million. How did the additional $1.2 million get there???
Barack’s debut book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” was published in 1995.
It was not extremely popular for the first eight or nine years following its introduction. Following his 2004 DNC speech, the book skyrocketed in popularity, resulting in a sizable royalties windfall for the Obama family in 2005.
The Obamas claimed a combined income of $916,000. Barack Obama’s second book, “Audacity of Hope,” was a smashing success, selling millions of copies and rocketing his revenue to $4.2 million in 2007.
Their wealth continued to grow in the following years, owing to Barack’s successful 2008 campaign and election. Barack Obama receives $3.75 for each hardback book and $1.12 for each paperback edition he sells. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, royalties were robust.
Barack and Michelle Obama got a $60 million advance in February 2017 for the rights to their joint memoirs.
