In August 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden announced that his running mate (open in new tab) would be California Senator Kamala Harris. Harris had previously run against Biden in the Democratic primary, but was unsuccessful in December 2019. In a statement in December of that year (open in new tab), Harris said of her campaign that she "simply does not have the financial resources necessary to continue." She continued, "I am not a billionaire. I am not a millionaire. As the campaign progresses, it is getting harder and harder to raise the money needed to compete."

According to the New York Times (opens in new tab), Harris was one of the highest earning Democratic candidates even after Michael Bloomberg entered the race; in April 2019, as a presidential candidate she released 15 years of tax returns, the most of any candidate at the time. She was the highest earning candidate at the time. According to a campaign aide (open in new tab), by releasing her taxes from 2004 to 2018, she was "the most transparent of the candidates when it comes to information about her personal finances."

Biden followed suit, releasing his tax returns (open in new tab) just hours before the first presidential debate (open in new tab) last September. Biden, once known as "the poorest man in Congress," now has an estimated net worth of about $9 million (opens in new tab). The vice president is similarly wealthy: according to Fortune magazine (opens in new tab), Harris' net worth is estimated to be about $6.3 million. The estimated net worth of all of President Biden's cabinet members can be found here (opens in new tab).

In the interest of full transparency, Vice President Harris released her and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff's 2020 tax returns in May 2021. According to the document, Harris and Emhoff reported federal adjusted gross income of $1,695,225 and paid federal income taxes of $621,893. In the same year, the couple also donated $27,006 to charity.

Needless to say, the first female vice president of the United States, the first black vice president, and the first South Asian vice president (open in new tab) have worked hard for their money.

Kamala was elected as San Francisco district attorney in 2003; according to Forbes (open in new tab), she earned over $140,000 that year, and her wages rose steadily throughout her six years in office, peaking at $202,000 in 2010. According to Women's Health (opens in new tab), the job qualifies her to receive a pension worth at least $250,000 today.

When Harris became California's attorney general in 2010, she took a significant pay cut from her previous position, making just under $160,000 a year, according to her tax returns (opens in new tab) obtained by The New York Times. Seven years later, when she became a U.S. senator representing California, her salary increased slightly to $174,000 a year, the annual salary paid to all senators since her last raise in 2009.

When Harris became vice president in January, she began receiving a federally mandated salary of $235,100. (Incidentally, the current presidential salary is fixed at $400,000 per year.) In addition to this, Harris is allowed up to $100,000 in expenses related to the vice presidency, and she can live free of charge at Number One Observatory Circle, the official residence of the vice president.

A three-time author, Harris has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in advances. Harris published Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor's Plan to Make Us Safer (opens in new tab) in 2009 and Superheroes Are Everywhere (opens in new tab), a picture book for children, in 2019. He published. That same year, he published his memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (opens in new tab). According to her 2018 tax return, she earned $320,125 for writing her memoir.

In the future, Harris' writing is expected to increase further. Not only did she report earnings of $277,763 from book advances in 2019, but she will likely be tapped in the future for a memoir reflecting on her historic turn as vice president once her term ends.

Harris married attorney Douglas Emhoff (open in new tab) in 2014. They have three homes in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco and, according to Forbes (opens in new tab), have total assets of $2.5 million after factoring in debt. From these and other assets listed in the Senate financial disclosure forms Harris filed on behalf of Emhoff last May, the couple's combined net worth could reach $6.3 million, according to Fortune magazine. In addition, even excluding Emhoff's assets, Harris has up to $1.7 million in his sole account.

Besides their jointly owned property, Harris and Emhoff are estimated to have earned a combined $8.2 million during the time they have been together, and throughout the six years of joint filings, their annual income has remained steady at around $2 million. According to Forbes (opens in new tab), most of this comes from Emhoff's work at her law firm Venable and DLA Piper; in 2018 alone, she and Emhoff reported a combined adjusted gross income of $1.9 million, according to Harris' published tax return for the same fiscal year. On their income for the year, they paid a tax rate of about 37%, which, interestingly, was the highest tax rate of any 2020 Democratic candidate that year, according to the New York Times (opens in new tab).