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.
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.
The name Kusimulkku is very much Finnish (it means peehole). Houses don’t all cost half a million dollars there and retirement is funded through taxation. 500k net worth in Finland is comparable to being a millionaire in the US I would say. You would probably have 6 digits in your bank account OR own majority of a small company if you’re worth 500k.
A lot of people also don’t count their only residence as part of their net worth as it’s their home, not an investment vehicle and definitely not liquid. Things change when you can afford multiple properties, but you aren’t going to sell your only home just because it has appreciated - everything else has likely also gone up then.
Just saying, his perspective coule be very different from yours. I know this because I’m Estonian and 500k to me sounds like a pretty high net worth.
Houses don’t all cost half a million dollars there and retirement is funded through taxation.
I suppose we could be cheeky, take Solidium - the Finnish sovereign wealth fund - and amortize assets across the population as “collective wealth”. But holding individuals with 401ks to account for being “rich” because they’re doing the only legally expedient form of retirement savings is absurd, I agree.
I think my point is more along the lines of “I don’t even have half a million dollars” doesn’t imply to me that they have half a million dollars.
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.
I don’t know if you get that I’m reacting to what she said. Saying she isn’t worth “even” half a million sounded a lot to me since I didn’t realize the average was so high in the US. It sounded high for saying you’re not worth “even” that. Idk if you get what I mean.
But really you’re getting bent out of shape over something very unnecessary. I suggest calming down.
