A vice president like the rest of us

By Tim Middleton

Compared with the piles of financial disclosures from would-be presidents I've pored over in recent months, the filings of vice-presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are astonishing.

Palin, the Alaska governor whose selection by John McCain for the Republican ticket has riveted both sides of the political aisle, would be the poorest vice president in recent memory. Biden, Barack Obama's almost-taken-for-granted running mate, would be as well.

Rather than multimillionaires with sprawling assets tucked into tax-free bonds (Obama) and lavish estates (McCain) or with gigantic incomes from speeches and books (Hillary Clinton), the Republican and Democrat VP hopefuls are the folks next door. Palin carpools to school basketball games. Biden struggles to pay off college loans for his sons.

In a political world usually divided between the rich and superrich, the Palins and Bidens are decidedly middle class. And their investments are on the same scale as yours and mine.

Maybe a million bucks -- combined

Not counting their homes, which are exempt from reporting requirements, the VP candidates would struggle to find $1 million between them. Their retirement nest eggs -- which for both candidates are almost their entire net worth -- are modest in the extreme, amounting to somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 for each family.

They are also, on the liberal-conservative scale, upside down. Democrat Biden has most of his money in a tax-sheltered annuity, that most timid of investment vehicles. The Republican Palins (husband Todd is the investor) are much bolder, venturing into individual stocks and exotic exchange-traded funds, or ETFs.

• Talk back: Do you see Biden and Palin as middle class?

But both Palin and Biden are lucky they have government pensions to fall back on, because their savings won't support either one in the lifestyle to which they aspire -- and will win, if the electorate gives the nod.

Everyday finances

Palin's public image as a down-to-earth, effusive hockey mom is reflected in her finances. Her state disclosure form is handwritten. It confesses she accepted a "gift" from an Alaska lobbyist in the form of carpooling with another mother of a sixth-grader. She also, as governor of the largest U.S. state, accepted an ivory puffin mask worth $2,200 from Calista, an economic-development group of Native peoples.

She earns $125,000 a year as governor, and Todd Palin earns almost exactly as much from seasonal jobs, including salmon fishing, oil-rig maintenance and his championship snowmobiling in Alaska's annual Iron Dog race.

In addition to owning their home, the Palins are co-owners, along with friends, of two vacation properties identified not by street number or town name but by tract number from the state's land survey. They have a mortgage on their home but no other debt.

The Palins also benefit from a source of income unique to Alaska residents: the state's Permanent Fund, which hands out a slice of the state's proceeds from North Slope oil. Sarah and Todd Palin each received $1,654 from the fund in 2007, and their children, together, received the same amount. The family total was $4,962.

In 2007, the period covered by the latest financial disclosures, Biden earned a little less than $300,000 from the Senate ($165,200), part-time teaching jobs and a book advance. His income and portfolio reflect his ranking as one of the poorest senators.

He is encumbered by several loans, including one dating to 1989 that was used for a son's college expenses. It was valued between $15,001 and $50,000 at the end of 2007. Unlike Palin's filing, which under Alaska rules can be detailed down to the penny, Biden's is on a federal form that organizes finances into broad ranges, such as $100,001 to $250,000.

Both officeholders get perks. Palin reportedly was able to take per diem payments for nights she spent at home. Biden will get a lucrative pension after spending 36 years in the Senate. But as suspicious as we are of politicians, there's no sign these candidates are cashing in on their offices.

Continued: How they invest

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