Who Was the Poorest U.S. President?

President Harry S. Truman was said to be the poorest president in modern history.  National Archives - Truman Library

Harry S. Truman is widely considered the poorest president in modern U.S. history. The Democrat was one of the "saddest cases of presidential hardship" and could barely provide for his family, historians and scholars say.

That Truman was able to win the presidency despite his meager upbringing is remarkable in an age when almost all of the candidates elected to the White House are millionaires.

Truman is remarkable for another reason, too. He is the only modern president without a college degree. The 33rd president of the United States, Truman attended business college and law school but graduated from neither.

Truman's Money Problems

Historian David McCullough writes about Truman's money problems and his unsuccessful Kansas City haberdashery business in his 2003 biography Truman. The store, Truman & Jacobson, had lost $35,000 and eventually failed in 1922, forcing Truman very near bankruptcy.

Writes McCullough:

"Fifteen years after the story went under, Truman would still be paying off on the haberdashery, and as a consequence would be strapped for money for 20 years."

According to the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum:

"Truman narrowly avoided bankruptcy, and through determination and over many years he paid off his share of the store's debts."

Truman also lost almost all of his money on bad investments in mining and oil.

Truman biographer Alonzo Hamby once described Truman as a "classic American striver, and a failure, until politics intervened" — though his eventual $10,000 salary as a U.S.

senator couldn't help him his family's farm.

Plain Folks in the White House

Even after becoming a successful politician — Truman was elected a county judge, then U.S. senator before running as vice president — he still lived a modest life. 

In Washington, according to Truman's obituary in The New York Times ...

"Senator and Mrs. Truman lived simply in an apartment with their daughter and only child, Mary Margaret, who was born Feb. 17, 1924. The family was 'plain folks,' with Truman coming home in the evening to talk to Margie, as he called his daughter, and to recount the day's happenings to his wife, whom he called 'The Boss.' The Trumans were little evident on the social and cocktail circuit."

Reason Behind Presidential Salary Hike

According to the website 24/7WallSt.com, Truman's money problems are the reason Congress decided to boost the presidential salary at the time.  

President Harry Truman began his second term in 1949 by getting a 33 percent pay raise. He was the first president to earn six figures, going from the $75,000 that presidents had been paid since 1909 to $100,000.

The salary of $100,000 went into effect in 1949 and continued through 1969.