When you serve as president of the United States for one term instead of two, you are often thought of as a failure. After all, there are more calls to put former President Ronald Reagan on a coin than there are for former President George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton is generally seen as having been more effective in the role than Jimmy Carter. Recently, the 39th and longest-lived former president announced he was entering care for the end of his days and with his passing imminent, many are wondering just how much this public figure who many see as a better man than he was a president is worth, financially speaking.
To begin with, as the still-living 98-year-old as of this article’s filing is a private citizen, any wealth estimation is hard to precisely determine given a lack of public finance disclosure rules when one is not seeking an elected position. One outlet estimates it to be $60 million, another has it at $5 million and a different publication puts it around $10 million. More precise information will likely come out in the future, but official sources on Carter’s earlier years do confirm he, wife Rosalyn and their three sons did have to live in public housing at one point before his political career took off. Once it did, he put his main asset (a peanut farm) into a blind trust in order to avoid conflicts of interest (seems quaint by today’s standards doesn’t it?) but those who managed it did not steer the thing with any sort of prudence and after he returned to the company in 1981 he was $1 million in debt and nearly broke.
So, with his back against the wall and needing something, Carter took a page from former President Ulysses S. Grant and wrote. Either by himself or with his wife, he has written more than 10 books ranging from poetry to children’s content and history fiction. Given his position and the fact he and his family still live in a house worth less than $200,000, it is likely he received some hefty advances and put portions of the money into investments when not working with his foundation or Habitat for Humanity.
Certainly, while not perfect, Carter leaves a legacy in the same way those who have come after and before him have. It will certainly be debated, and, whatever the case may be, you cannot deny the man rose from obscurity and has stayed very busy.
