What is Jill Biden's Net Worth and Salary?
Jill Biden is an American educator who ha s net worth of $9 million. She is best known for being married to President Joe Biden. Jill Biden became the first lady of the United States as wife of President Joe Biden in 2021. Previously, she was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Additionally, Biden has had a prolific career teaching at high schools, psychiatric hospitals, and community colleges. She is a professor at Northern Virginia Community College. Federal financial disclosures have showed that her teaching salary is typically around $85,000 per year.
Tax Returns
According to their joing tax returns, the Bidens earned the following amounts in recent years:
- 2016: $400,000
- 2017: $11 million
- 2018: $4.6 million
- 2019: $944,737
- 2020: $607,336
- 2021: $610,702
- 2022: $579,514
- 2023: $619,976
In a more detailed report on their taxes that was released in April 2024, Joe and Jill earned $619,976 in adjusted gross income in 2023. They paid $146,629 in federal income tax, at an effective federal tax rate of 23.7%. They also paid $30,908 in Delaware income tax. Jill paid $3,549 in Virginia income tax. The majority of their income came thanks to Joe's $400,000 Presidential salary, with another $85,985 coming from Jill's teaching job at a Northern Virginia Community College. The remainder of their income, roughly $134,000 came from social security payments. They made $20,000 worth of charitable donations in the year to 17 different charities, including a $5,000 donation to the Beau Biden Foundation.
Early Life
Jill Biden was born as Jill Jacobs on June 3, 1951 in Hammonton, New Jersey to Bonny, a homemaker, and Donald, a bank teller and US Navy veteran. As a child, she lived with her family in Hatboro, Pennsylvania and then in Mahwah, New Jersey, where her father was the head of a savings and loan association. Following this, they moved to Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, where Biden was raised with her four younger sisters. She attended Upper Moreland High School, and did work waitressing in Ocean City, New Jersey.
Career in Education
After graduating high school in 1969, Biden enrolled at Brandywine Junior College for a semester. She then transferred to the University of Delaware as an English major. Following a year off, during which she modeled for a local agency, Biden returned to college and earned her BA in 1975. Subsequently, she began her pedagogical career as a substitute teacher in the Wilmington public school system, before teaching English for a year at St. Mark's High School. Biden continued teaching while working toward her master's degree in education at West Chester State College. She went on to teach disabled students, and taught in an adolescent program at the Rockford Center psychiatric hospital. In 1987, Biden earned another graduate degree from Villanova University. Continuing on in education, she taught at such institutions as Brandywine High School and Claymont High School. From 1993 to 2008, Biden taught at Delaware Technical & Community College. During this time, she returned to her own schooling to obtain a doctoral degree in educational leadership from the University of Delaware.
Second Lady of the United States
In 2009, Biden became second lady of the United States upon the election of her husband as vice president to Barack Obama. She continued to teach during this time, serving as an adjunct professor, and later an associate professor, at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College. As the second lady, Biden partnered with first lady Michelle Obama to launch the initiative Joining Forces, which raised awareness of the needs of military families in the US. Biden continued to teach at NOVA throughout her second term as second lady, and became a full-time professor after her husband left office.
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First Lady of the United States
In 2021, upon the election of her husband as President of the United States, Biden became the nation's new first lady. Leading up to the election, she played an active role in her husband's campaign, often staging appearances without him. She was also significantly involved in the selection process for vice president, which ended up going to Senator Kamala Harris.
As first lady, Biden has continued to teach at NOVA, first over Zoom and then in person following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. This has made her the first wife of a sitting US president to hold a paying job beyond the White House. Biden also revived the dormant Joining Forces program she had launched with Michelle Obama.
Personal Life
In 1970, Biden married her first husband, Bill Stevenson. A former college football player, he opened a college bar called the Stone Balloon in Newark, Delaware, which became one of the most successful in the country. The couple drifted apart around 1974, and divorced in 1975. Subsequently, Biden met Senator Joe Biden on a blind date set up by the latter's brother Frank. Smitten by his genteel manners and appearance, she declared to her mother that she had "finally met a gentleman." The two married in 1977 at the Chapel at the United Nations in New York City, and spent their honeymoon at Lake Balaton in Hungary.
With her husband, Biden raised her stepsons Beau and Hunter, who had survived a car accident several years earlier that claimed the lives of their mother and sister. The Bidens also had a daughter, named Ashley, in 1981. Tragically, in 2015, Beau passed away from cancer; this caused Biden to lose her faith for many years, but she gained it back on the campaign trail in 2019. Before becoming President and Vice President, the Bidens purchased a $2.7 million vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware where they planned to host their extended family.
Writing Career
As an author, Biden penned the children's book "Don't Forget, God Bless Our Troops," which was based on her stepson Beau's military deployment. Later, she released a memoir titled "Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself." In 2020, Biden published another children's book, "Joey: The Story of Joe Biden."
Philanthropy
Heavily involved in philanthropic endeavors, Biden and her husband established the Biden Foundation in 2017. The organization focuses on preventing violence against women. Also that year, Biden became the board chair of the charity Save the Children. Among her other philanthropic activities, Biden is president of the Biden Breast Health Initiative, a nonprofit that offers free educational breast health awareness programs to groups throughout Delaware. She also co-founded Book Buddies, which gives books to low-income kids, and is active in the military family support organization Delaware Boots on the Ground.
Book Deal
After leaving the White House in 2016, Joe and Jill Biden and his wife signed an $10 million joint book deal covering three books.
Real Estate
The Bidens' primary residence is a home in the neighborhood of Greenville in Wilmington, Delaware. The home overlooks a man-made lake that was originally built by wealthy members of the du Pont family. Joe and Jill bought their home in 1997 for $350,000. Similar homes in the area have recently sold for a bit more than $2 million. In 2017, Joe and Jill paid $2.74 million for a six-bedroom vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Between 2018 and 2019, the couple rented a $4 million mansion in McLean, Virginia, paying $20,000 per month.
