Ilhan Omar Is One of the Poorest People in Congress, and She's OK With That

The net worth of your average politician can sometimes be surprising. Some politicians who you might assume don't have much money sometimes have more than you think, while others might have less than you'd expect.

Of course, every member of Congress earns the same salary, but some of them supplement those salaries in different ways, and others came into the job with some money. Rep. Ilhan Omar is one of the most progressive members of the House, and many now want to know more about what her net worth is. Here's what we know.

Ilhan Omar's financial disclosures from 2024 show that she has just $65,000 to her name split across a Congressional savings account and a Minnesota retirement account. Additionally, her disclosures show that she still owes between $15,000 and $50,000 on student loans that date back to 2005. She disclosed this information in part because a user on X (formerly Twitter) claimed that both she and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were worth tens of millions of dollars.

"First of all I haven’t been in Congress for eight years and my net worth isn’t $83 million dollars," she wrote on X. "I know your brain [is] rotten from the conspiracy theories you are consuming daily but try not to announce your stupidity to the world. My salary is $174,000 before taxes, I don’t have stock or own a home and [I'm] still paying off my student debt."

"So if you are going to lie on something that is public, maybe try checking my public financial statements and you will see I barely have thousands let alone millions," she continued.

In speaking with Business Insider, Omar offered the same picture of her financial well-being.

"Since getting elected, there has been a coordinated right-wing disinformation campaign claiming all sorts of wild things, including the ridiculous claim I am worth millions of dollars which is categorically false," she said.

"I am a working mom with student loan debt. Unlike some of my colleagues — and similar to most Americans — I am not a millionaire and am raising a family while maintaining a residence in both Minneapolis and D.C.," she added.

It seems clear that the post was designed to besmirch Omar's integrity as a progressive by suggesting that she was independently wealthy. While those two ideas aren't inherently in conflict the more relevant fact in this case is that Omar is not nearly as wealthy as some may have claimed.