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The Official Chuck Schumer Net Worth Is $900 Thousand - Here's How He Made His Money

Chuck Schumer

People with an interest in U.S. politics should be familiar with Chuck Schumer to some extent. In part, this is because he is the current Senate Minority Leader, meaning that he is a figure of considerable importance. However, it should also be noted that Schumer is famous for his fondness of publicity, so much so that both Democratic and Republican politicians have been known to make jokes about his tendencies in this regard. Regardless, some people might be curious about Schumer's current net worth. If so, they might be interested to learn that the Center for Responsive Politics estimates it to be close to $949,000. How did Chuck Schumer reach his current net worth?

Net Worth$900 Thousand
NameCharles Ellis Schumer
Age69
BornNew York City, New York
Birth DateNovember 23, 1950
Source of WealthAmerican Politician
CountryUnited States

How His Early Life Contributed To His Fortune

Schumer's ancestors came from a place in what is now Western Ukraine. It is interesting to note that Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire to the United States happened throughout the 19th century. However, the out-flow took no an urgent note in the early 1880s, which was caused by the pogroms in combination with other very virulent expressions of antisemitism. Due to this, the number of Jewish people emigrating from the Russian Empire to the United States saw a huge jump until the 1920s, which was when the United States instituted the National Origins Quota that put severe restrictions on the numbers of people who could come from Eastern Europe as well as various other regions. As for the Jewish people who had already managed to make it to the relative safety of the United States, a lot of them settled in New York City and the local stretch of the East Coast. However, a fair number settled in Texas plus the western states and territories because of what was called the Galveston Movement.

Regardless, Schumer's father ran an exterminating business, while Schumer's mother was a homemaker. Schumer was born in Brooklyn, raised in Brooklyn, and went to high school in Brooklyn. Moreover, he was very good when he went to school in Brooklyn, as shown by how he managed to secure a perfect SAT score. Something that helped him reach Harvard College, which in turn, prepared him for studying for his Juris Doctor at the Harvard Law School. With that said, while it is interesting to note that Schumer went on to pass the New York state bar, he has never actually practiced law at all.

Fascination with Politics

Instead, Schumer became fascinated with politics when he was still in college, so much so that he decided to pursue a career in politics rather than a career in law. As a result, he ran for a seat in the New York State Assembly that had been occupied by his political mentor before he managed to pass the New York state bar. Schumer proceeded to win said seat, thus establishing a pattern of consistent success when it comes to his own elections. By 1980, Schumer had managed to enter the U.S. House of Representatives by running for another vacated seat, which was followed up by him being reelected a total of eight times. Eventually, Schumer managed to unseat a Republican incumbent named Al D'Amato in the U.S. Senate in 1998, which is where he has remained ever since.

Since the late 1990s, Schumer has continued to serve in the U.S. Senate. Interested individuals should have no problems finding a full list of the political maneuvering that he has been involved with at various points in his career, but some examples range from the time when he was involved with getting a stalled election reform bill going again in 2002 to the time when he was involved with the Democratic effort to persuade President George W. Bush to instruct his staffers to not take action against a whistleblower named Richard Foster in 2004. Over time, Schumer has risen higher and higher in the Democratic Party, with the result that he became the one to lead Democratic Senators in an unanimous election following Harry Reid's retirement in 2016. In this, Schumer actually managed to make history in a couple of ways. One, he has the distinction of being the first New Yorker to serve as a Senate Leader. Two, he has the distinction of being the first Jewish person to serve as a Senate Leader as well.

Given Schumer's career, it seems probable that most of his current net worth has been built up through his political career. For instance, it is interesting to note that most members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate make $174,000 on an annual basis in the present time, while the leaders make a higher sum of $193,400 over the same period of time. Besides his political career, Schumer has written a book called Positively American, which was focused on the topic of how to convince middle-class individuals to cast their votes for the Democratic Party. However, said book wasn't particularly prominent, so it seems safe to say that its contribution to Schumer's net worth was relatively minor in extent.

Further Considerations

It remains to be seen how Schumer's career will continue to proceed in the times to come. However, considering that he has spent his entire career in politics, it seems pretty reasonable to say that his net worth won't be seeing sudden jumps because of some kind of sudden career change anytime soon. Combined with the fact that Schumer has managed to win every election that he has ever run in, there is a good chance that he could keep on going for years and years to come. Something that is particularly true because there have been a lot of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate who didn't retire until much later in life. In fact, the current record is held by Storm Thurmond, who managed to keep going until he died in office at the age of 100.

Allen Lee

Written by Allen Lee

Allen Lee is a Toronto-based freelance writer who studied business in school but has since turned to other pursuits. He spends more time than is perhaps wise with his eyes fixed on a screen either reading history books, keeping up with international news, or playing the latest releases on the Steam platform, which serve as the subject matter for much of his writing output. Currently, Lee is practicing the smidgen of Chinese that he picked up while visiting the Chinese mainland in hopes of someday being able to read certain historical texts in their original language.

Read more posts by Allen Lee

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