Summary
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denied claims that she is secretly wealthy, stating she is worth less than $500,000 and doesn’t trade stocks or take corporate money.
Her financial disclosures show modest savings and student debt.
Some conservatives on X, despite opposing her politics, praised her perceived integrity.
Accusations of political corruption have surged online, partly fueled by Elon Musk.
she is worth less than $500,000
That sounds like a lot of money still, but I’d imagine public figures can easily leverage that to wealth so makes sense
She doesn’t even own her own home, or she lives in a shark at that value. No second property: no cottage or landlording.
Anywhere property is massively over valued this is going to be true.
Even taking off what I owe in mortgage my net worth would make me look pretty well off in the UK, but I earn a pretty below average wage.
It’s amazing how so much of our wealth is tied up in “assets” as opposed to liquid cash. I probably have just slightly less in assets than AOC at the moment, but I also don’t own a home, so if I ever managed to buy one my net worth would skyrocket beyond hers but I’d be housepoor and most likely living paycheck to paycheck. I’m not even close to being considered conventionally wealthy, and the distance between me and a billionaire is almost literally unfathomable.
That we can’t afford to use because we don’t have a safety net.
My net worth is probably just under half a million but I’ll be working until I’m over 70 if I want to be able to pass anything useful down to my kids.
I have one with special needs that likely won’t be able to work, much less manage a portfolio.Without my help he could be homeless soon after I pass.
She has to have two places one in DC and one in her district. She like.y cannot afford that at her salary as both places are extremely expensive
Jesus, people need to learn to read a damn article.
Her financial disclosure form last year showed she had no more than $46,000 across her checking, savings, brokerage, and 401(k) accounts, and owed between $15,000 and $50,000 of student loans.
Forbes estimated Ocasio-Cortez’s net worth last year at about $125,000 with most of her wealth in a Thrift Savings Plan — a 401(k)-style investment vehicle for government employees that doesn’t have to be listed in financial disclosures.
And no it’s not that unusual for ordinary people to have 500k net worth. Buy a house, put in a few percent in your 401k in index funds, and there you go.
Uhm, it’s her own damn words (from the article):
You are completely making things up. I am not even worth $1 million. Or a half million. I am one of the lowest net worth members of Congress, trade no individual stock, and take no outside income. These filings are public. I loathe corruption, and your lying is reprehensible.
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1887197530573717552
She specifically decided to say “less than half million” which sounded a lot to me.
How does “I’m not even worth half a million” mean “I have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank” to people. I don’t get it.
If you have a retirement account and a home, you’re probably worth more than that anyway.
Sigh…
Even when putting up literally text and numbers, you can’t read or math.
Alright let’s break it down.
45,000 savings + 125000 government 401k = 170,000
Now let’s compare numbers here. 500,000 is a bigger number than 170,000
So what she said, given our known facts and assumptions, what she said is absolutely true. She’s not with half a million, she’s worth 170,000 USD and a 125,000 of that isn’t even really available to her because it’s a retirement savings account.
For fucks sake, she’s wasn’t saying she had 500,000 dollars in cash on her. She was being ever so slightly hyperbolic to make a point that she’s not rich.
Cripes, reading is so fundamental.
For that matter, Millennials are going to need a $1M networth by retirement age. At least $1M. Now, AOC has some pension benefits as a member of Congress, so she’s not quite as ratfucked as the rest of us, but even if she had $500k, she’d be in the “good enough” range.
I’m the ass end of Gen-X and even I need to have at least 1.5 million to retire relatively comfortable so I’m thinking that 1 million isn’t going to be enough for Millennials.
Do you live in the USA? That’s not even the price of an “okay” median house in a middle-class neighborhood. That’s a nice chunk to have in the bank or have in investments, but if you ever want to retire at a decent age and not spend your later years eating canned beans in a mobile home, you need to save up more than a million unless you have some specific plans for your future.
A lot of people have a lot of huge misconceptions about the wealth in the US. We may be the richest nation but we spend the most also, and the costs are skyrocketing beyond even the highest normal wages. You simply cannot own a house on a single income. In many other countries $20 USD will get you a week’s worth of hot meals, here you can accidentally spend $50 running out to the grocery store for several ingredients for dinner or a half dozen frozen meals.
