Biden’s $417K Pension Sparks Outrage — Taxpayer Tab
Joe Biden is set to receive about $417,000 a year after leaving office. That number has people talking. Loudly.
It tops the president’s salary of $400,000. It’s roughly double what Barack Obama gets in retirement. And it’s paid by American taxpayers.
How does this happen? Two pieces of pay get stacked. One is the former-president pension — roughly $230,000 a year. The other is a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) benefit that traces to decades of federal work: 36 years in the Senate and eight as vice president. Those Old-Age federal rules add up.
Experts flagged how unusual the total is. “It’s pretty unusual, historically unusual, to have such a large pension amount” — according to an NTUF expert quoted in media reports. That line captures why people are upset.
This isn’t just a math problem. It’s a policy problem. A federal system lets multiple benefit streams stack with few caps. Salaries were higher at points in Biden’s career. Inflation adjustments pushed pay up. The payoff: a former president collecting a package that, combined, beats the job he held.
Plenty of Americans juggle bills and watch retirement accounts shrink with inflation. They see this headline and ask: why should one person get layered federal pensions while others don’t?
Groups like the National Taxpayers Union Foundation want fixes. They recommend closing duplication, capping combined pensions, and tying some benefits to means or wealth. Republican lawmakers have echoed some of those ideas. Senator Joni Ernst and others have pushed for limits on duplicated federal payouts.
Biden gets the LARGEST pension of any ex-president in US HISTORY — $417,000
'It’s pretty unusual, historically unusual, to have such a large pension amount' — expert from National Taxpayer Union Foundation to NYP
That's more than his salary as president was pic.twitter.com/OIjKTToSzo
— RT (@RT_com) January 5, 2026
Democrats so far have resisted major changes. That fuels a common conservative argument: big government perks for the elite while the middle class bears the tax burden. That message lands in millions of voters’ mailboxes.
This story also highlights public perception. Donald Trump famously waived presidential pay while in office and donated it instead. That contrast feeds critique: voters see sacrifice from some leaders and big payout packages for others.
Fixes are possible. Lawmakers could prevent former presidents from collecting multiple overlapping federal pensions beyond a set cap. Congress could require benefit offsets for years of overlapping federal service. Or they could tie parts of the payout to demonstrated financial need. Those are straightforward policy choices.
Will they pass? That’s the question. With a national debt north of $35 trillion and government spending under scrutiny, reform conversations have momentum. But politics will decide whether they go anywhere.
For now, the headline is simple. A former president may collect a taxpayer-funded package that reads like a princely payout. People on the right call it outrageous. People in the middle want answers. Lawmakers promise reviews. Action will tell us whether the system changes or stays the same.
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