Newsmaker

Obama 2009 income includes $1,600 pet dog

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-05-18 14:18

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama raked in millions of dollars in book royalties in 2009 and got one very special $1,600 gift - his pet dog, Bo.

Obama 2009 income includes $1,600 pet dog

Bo, the Obama's family pet, sits in the Cross Hall before an event with first lady Michelle Obama to welcome children of Executive Office employees at the White House's annual take our daughters and sons to work day on Thursday, April 22, 2010 in Washington. [Agencies]

The Portuguese water dog, which was a gift from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, was listed on annual financial disclosure forms the White House released Monday.

Royalties from his books, "Dreams From My Father" and "Audacity of Hope," rang in at between $1 million and $5 million each.

Obama also listed a number of safe investments in Treasury bonds and retirement and college savings accounts. Including funds held jointly with his wife, Michelle, those assets were worth between about $2.2 million and $7.5 million in 2009. Assets are listed in wide ranges on the disclosure forms, making it difficult to determine their value with precision.

There was also $1.4 million from winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which was donated to charity.

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Obama also sold two inheritances from his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who died in the final days of his campaign. He made less than $1,000 from the sale of a tax-free trust. A second inheritance -- shares in the Bank of Hawaii where his grandmother rose from a secretary to a vice president -- sold for between $250,000 and $500,000. Obama's tax returns, made public earlier in the year, show he took a loss on that investment.

Obama's salary is $400,000. He listed no debts.

Michelle Obama has some assets of her own, including retirement funds and a deferred compensation package from the University of Chicago Hospitals where she worked as an executive.

An oddity Michelle Obama shares with other recent first ladies: she gets so-called "pin money," an old-fashioned term for spending money a man would give his wife, from the trust of a man named Henry G. Freeman Jr.

Freeman died in 1917, stating that after the last relatives in his will were deceased, an annuity of $12,000 would be paid every year to each first lady during her husband's term as president. The reason he gave was that, in his opinion, presidents were poorly paid. His last relatives didn't die until 1989.