“I actually live in a middle-class lifestyle, in a middle-class neighborhood, in the American Midwest,” Pete Buttigieg recently told CNBC. He has the finances to prove it.
Forbes estimates that Buttigieg has built a net worth of about $100,000, largely thanks to his six-figure salary as mayor of South Bend, Indiana—making him a financially comfortable Midwesterner, but one of the least wealthy 2020 presidential hopefuls.
His earnings have bounced up and down over the past decade. In 2010, Buttigieg left his high-paying consulting job with McKinsey & Company to run full-time for treasurer of his home state of Indiana. His yearly earnings plummeted from $150,000 to $34,000, according to his tax returns. He lost that race and then decided to run for mayor of South Bend. His income fell further, to just $7,000 in 2011, propped up only by his 2009 decision to enlist in the U.S. Navy Reserve. “I had health insurance and a little income from reserve duty,” Buttigieg wrote in his 2019 book Shortest Way Home, “but that came to about $400 a month, just shy of enough to cover my mortgage.”
Luckily he won the mayor’s job and the ample salary that came with it. One of the highest-paid mayors in Indiana, Buttigieg has brought in more than $100,000 every year since taking office in 2012—except 2014, when his income dropped to $46,000 because he was deployed to Afghanistan for part of the year, forgoing his city salary.
Buttigieg has funneled those mayoral earnings—plus a $30,000 chunk of his book advance—into a portfolio of cash and investments, including Google and Apple stock, worth between $87,000 and $300,000, according to a Forbes analysis of his financial disclosure.
But his single largest asset is his home. When he returned to Indiana a decade ago, Buttigieg shelled out $125,000 for a vacant, 2,500-square-foot neoclassical house in the neighborhood where he grew up. He set about refurbishing it, taking out a $100,000 mortgage that made headlines earlier this year when he revealed the payment is just $450 per month. A second mortgage, taken out in 2017 for $70,000, likely adds another $400 or so to his monthly bill.
Forbes estimates that Mayor Pete, who would not comment for this story, still owes about $150,000 on the mortgages. Plus he and his husband, Chasten, a former middle school teacher, owe between $110,000 and $245,000 in student loans, according to the financial disclosure form.
Last year the couple earned nearly $153,000. And 2019 is shaping up to be their highest-earning year to date, since Buttigieg got the remaining $45,000 of his book advance, and royalties from the bestseller, which was published in February, have started to flow. But their six-figure days may be nearing an end. Chasten resigned from his teaching job earlier this year, and when Mayor Pete’s final term expires at the end of the year, he may once again find himself unemployed while seeking office.
