Out of this World – U.S. Presidential Candidate Wealth and Asset Repartition

In the United States, citizens vote for individuals that they would like to lead and represent them as a nation. An interesting question is, therefore, how well do the representatives actually represent the average American?

Data was collected from Federal Election Committee disclosures, showing the mean value of the high and low listed figures for each asset. Donald Trump’s large business dealings make it difficult to nail down an actual amount invested in each asset since the scale tops out at \$50M+. Donald Trump has listed 29 assets that fall into this category and released a report touting his own net worth at \$10B. Forbes suggests he is worth a much more modest \$4.5B.

The data shows that none of the candidates are representative of the average American. Not only are the candidate’s investable assets considerably higher, from 2.9x to 27,911x, but the candidates also tend to prefer stocks (the notable exception being Trump). On the other hand, the average American tends towards business and real estate investments.

The Average American tends to be more diversified than any of the candidates. Most of the candidates have their money in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. The exception is Donald Trump, who has the vast majority of his wealth tied up in real estate.

Bernie Sanders has the majority of his account investment value in equities. It doesn’t seem that he has taken to heart the old adage about “the proportion of stocks in your portfolio should be 100-age.” If he did, he should have about 74% bonds/cash/peer lending and 26% equities, rather than the 60-75% equity exposure.

Both Cruz and Clinton have a surprising portion of their assets in cash and cash equivalents, with Clinton having about twice the relative cash exposure of Cruz.

The Average American can be broken down a bit further. The data suggests that the richer one gets, the more one invests in real estate and businesses, and the less one holds proportionately in cash.