Walz’s meager finances match his background as a small-town coach from America’s heartland.

The all-American working man demeanor of Tim Walz—Kamala Harris’s new running mate—looks like it’s not just an act.

Financial disclosures show Tim Walz barely has any assets to his name. No stocks, bonds, or even property to call his own. Together with his wife, Gwen, his net worth is $330,000, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal citing financial disclosures from 2019, the year after he became Minnesota governor.

With that kind of meager nest egg, he would be more or less in line with the median figure for Americans his age (he’s 60), and even poorer than the average. One in 15 Americans is a millionaire, a recent UBS wealth report discovered.

Meanwhile, the gross annual income of Walz and his wife, Gwen, amounted to $166,719 before tax in 2022, according to their joint return filed that same year. Walz is even entitled to earn more than the $127,629 salary he receives as state governor, but he has elected not to receive the roughly $22,000 difference.

“Walz represents the stable middle class,” tax lawyer Megan Gorman, who authored a book on the personal finances of U.S. presidents, told the paper.

  • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
    41·
    4 months ago

    You make a funny joke but the answer is ridiculously nuanced.

    Yes, corporate greed has led to unprecedented profits for the ultra rich, those ultra rich have birthed a new generation of trust fund millionaires.

    Yes some of this profit was from raping the health care system into an endless money farm, but not all of it.

    • porous_grey_matter
      11·
      4 months ago

      That doesn’t sound ridiculously nuanced to me, that sounds straightforwardly like what OP said.

      • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
        11·
        4 months ago

        that sounds straightforwardly like what OP said.

        No it doesn’t except to the most ridiculous degree of dissembly, and the full examination takes more time and space than I am willing to give away for free. Only a portion of the trust fund elite are powered by the medical industry, though all industries touched by the same degree of greed produce the same trust fund elite offspring.

        Not all cars are toyotas, not all toyotas are cars, but some toyotas are cars. That is nuance, learn it.

        • porous_grey_matter
          11·
          4 months ago

          It’s you who has the logic the wrong way around. The rich profiting from the healthcare system is why the healthcare system is bad, that doesn’t exclude them from profiting from other things too. In your analogy OP’s statement equates to “this Toyota is a car” (or “this car is a Toyota” depending on which thing is the rich and which thing is ruining a societal good).