Posts falsely inflate Tim Walz's net worth

"Walz has been a schoolteacher and politician. How did he acquire a net worth of $400 million?" says an August 6, 2024 post on Threads.

Additional Facebook posts also question his purportedly high net worth, with one claiming his assets are valued at $19 million.

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Screenshot of a Threads post taken August 14, 2024

Harris elevated Walz to the Democratic ticket on August 6, following President Joe Biden's decision to end his reelection campaign.

Since then, Walz has been the target of online misinformation -- including the claims about his wealth.

Estimates based on Walz's public financial statements show his net worth is less than $1 million, a low figure for a high-level US politician. Many members of Congress disclose assets and incomes stretching into the tens of millions of dollars and higher.

Walz's assets

Multiple media outlets have reported Walz's net worth to be around $330,000 -- below many Americans and far less than Harris and their Republican opponents Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

A statement of economic interests Walz filed while governor, which only requires the disclosure of investments valued at more than $10,000 (archived here), shows he held no securities or property as of January 2024 (archived here). He receives an annual salary of $127,629 (archived here).

In 2023, the Minnesota Compensation Council recommended a cost-of-living increase due to inflation (archived here), raising the governor's salary to $149,550 for 2024. However, a spokesperson for Walz told local media that while he supported increasing wages for state officials, he would not take the raise.

Income tax statements that Walz's gubernatorial campaign made publicly available show he and his wife Gwen reported a combined taxable income of $254,832 in 2023 and $127,676 in 2022 (archived here and here).

In 2019, while serving in the US House of Representatives, Walz reported Minnesota pension assets of between $81,000 and $215,000, as well as a life insurance plan worth up to $50,000 (archived here).

He also held a college savings plan worth up to $15,000. Such accounts can only be used for qualified education expenses.

Walz's 2018 disclosure showed he owned a home in Mankato, Minnesota and claimed rental income of up to $5,000 (archived here). A local journalist reported the Walz family sold the property in July 2019 and moved into the house provided for the governor.

AFP contacted Walz's office for further details, but a response was not forthcoming.

Satire targets Walz's daughter

A second series of posts claims that, despite Walz's supposedly high net worth, his daughter has received student loan debt forgiveness.

"How do you explain how Hope Walz gets 83 k in loan forgiveness when her parents (Dem Gov Tim Walz and his wife) are worth over 185 million," says an August 13, 2024 Facebook post.

"This is what is wrong with the system. It's broken. People who need get nothing, people who have everything steal more."

But keyword searches reveal the allegation comes from America's Last Line of Defense, a network of parody websites run by Christopher Blair, who AFP interviewed in 2020. Blair openly conceded that his content is filled with falsehoods, adding that "confirmation bias" leads people to believe and share the made-up articles.

A related Facebook page called "America Love it or Leave it" posted the claim August 10, 2024 in an image clearly marked as satire.

In the first comment on the post, the page says: "So the evidence shows that the story isn't true, which I can confirm because I just pulled it out of thin air."

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Screenshot of a Facebook post taken August 14, 2024, with elements highlighted by AFP

Hope Walz, 23, works as a social worker in the US state of Montana. Such employment could eventually qualify her for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but applicants must have already made 10 years of payments (archived here).

AFP has fact-checked numerous other claims about Walz and the 2024 US presidential election.