Joe Biden – 46th US President: Biography, Family, Politics, Net Worth: Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, the 46th President (2021 – 25) of the United States of America. He was born on November 20, 1942, in Scranton. He is the firstborn in the Irish Catholic family of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden and Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
Joe Biden Early Life
As a child, Joe Biden had a severe stutter. This stutter made him a target of bullies. When speech therapy did not help, Biden took matters into his own hands. He climbed a 200-foot mountain of coal mine scraps on a 5$ dare. The young lad could have plunged into the depths of intense heat. He climbed that mountain, making him feel like anything was possible.
When he was 11, his family shifted to Delaware, where he attended Archmere Academy. His schoolmates nicknamed him ‘Dash’ because of his stutter. It made his speech sound like Morse Code. Biden overcame his stutter through practice and persistence. The stutter developed empathy and compassion in the young student. He was athletic and garnered praise for his skills. After studying at the University of Delaware, he went to Syracuse University Law School, where he became more fascinated with justice and public service.
Young Adulthood
After completing Law School, Biden went on to work for a corporate law firm. He soon realized that this work of defending big corporations was not for him. In Delaware, Biden witnessed the difference in the quality of life between whites and African Americans. He worked as a public defender serving mostly African American clients.
Joe Biden Entry into Politics
Biden knew since law school that he wanted to become a public figure. He got his first chance in 1970 when he won the New Castle County Council seat. He served on the Council till 1972.
Two years later, in 1972, Biden won a seat in the United States Senate from Delaware. He was the youngest senator ever elected in American history at 29, for his first term in the Senate.
However, tragedy struck soon. Biden’s first wife, Neilia Hunter, and their one-year-old daughter, Naomi, died in an automobile accident just a few weeks after the Senate election of December 1972. So shaken was he by the event that he seriously considered resigning his seat to raise his two surviving sons, Beau and Hunter.
Family members and colleagues, however, continued to press him into service. He would commute daily by train from Delaware to Washington, D.C., to be there for his sons every evening while serving as a senator.
In the Senate
- Over his long tenure in the Senate, Biden made a reputation as one of that body’s more skilled legislators, cutting across party lines in the process.
- He led in the development and passage of critical legislation bringing about protection for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault through the Violence Against Women Act—the most important legislation toward such protection to date.
- His service on the Senate Judiciary Committee makes him critical to criminal justice reform; he formed a moral voice for civil rights and justice.
- Beyond that, Biden also had significant power in foreign policy matters as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair.
- He was one of the key players in the institution of U.S. foreign policy in the light of the expansion of NATO and furthering the prosecution of the War in Iraq. On both of these terrains, he would gain much experience in diplomatic negotiations and scrutinizing international matters, making him very credible on the international stage.
- He represented Delaware from 1973 to 2008.
Joe Biden – Vice President
His career took another turn in 2008 when Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate in the presidential election. With Vice-President Biden serving as the most critical cog in that administration, he ran some of its most critical initiatives, including;
- The Recovery Act kept the economy from falling apart following the 2008 economic downturn.
- Not to be forgotten is his leadership in passing the Affordable Care Act, which further cared for millions more American citizens. This period shows the endless pragmatic bend of his mind with a sure-footed and deft handling of complicated issues with poise and firmness.
- Above all, of course, he was able to bring his experience and firm hand to bear in the crucial field of foreign policy, where he worked hand-in-glove with President Obama in carefully managing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, firming up alliances, and dealing with new threats rising across the world.
Joe Biden US President – The Road to Presidency
Joe Biden, to his credit, when doing what seemed an unlikely thing for a 77-year-old in declaring his 2020 candidacy for the presidency—intended to take up to heart the issues of unity, healing, restoring the country’s moral leadership at home and around the world. He seemed to strike a chord in the nation. A nation that, on the one hand, was committed to its struggle against political and economic inequality and, on the other, was deeply divided by political polarisation while battling an unruly enemy, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those messages, empathy, and experience enabled Mr. Biden to assemble a much larger and diverse coalition of voters. Its popular pull and trust in the leadership were such that after millions of Americans turned out to vote for Biden, he won the 2020 election against the incumbent President.
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In The Office
As President Biden assumed the 46th office of the Presidency of the United States, he came walking into a hail of a mess—a whole host of problems no previous president had ever had to deal with: the pandemic still raging, economic instability, frayed ideas of social relations, among others. His administration mobilized at once to do so; with such relentless measures in fighting to surmount these challenges, it passed the American Rescue Plan that furnished much-needed respite to those families, operating businesses, and communities that had suffered the most due to the pandemic. Before the recent crisis, President Biden vigorously promoted his “Build Back Better” initiative to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, putting into place measures to combat.
Biden’s Re-election
A failing campaign for the second term led him to withdraw from the Presidential race, making him the only second president after Lyndon Johnson not to seek reelection. He withdrew from the campaign on July 21, 2024, and supported Kamala Harris’s bid for Presidency.
What Is Joe Biden’s Net Worth?
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden have an estimated net worth of $10 million, according to Forbes.
Biden and the first lady earned approximately $620,000 before taxes in 2023, as revealed by their tax return, which was released in April 2024 by the White House.
Biden receives a salary of $400,000 annually for his presidential position, while First Lady Jill Biden earns an annual salary of approximately $86,000 for her full-time teaching job at Northern Virginia Community College.
