Yahoo Finance How Big Is Newt Gingrich’s Social Security Check?
After unified Democrats and eight Republicans voted to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a historic 216-210 vote on Oct. 3, former speaker Newt Gingrich is in the news again, urging the GOP to banish McCarthy’s chief rival Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). Gingrich called Gaetz “anti-Republican” and those who engineered the ouster as “traitors.”
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Although he left office in January 1999, amid declining popularity within his party and ethics violations, Gingrich didn’t leave the game.
Aside from a failed presidential run in 2012, Gingrich has spent his time consulting, guest speaking and founding non- and for-profits, like his Gingrich Group, Gingrich Productions and Gingrich 360. Gingrich is a mainstay on conservative cable shows and Fox News Channel and is a fervent supporter of former President Trump, arguing that the 2020 election had been rigged while calling for the arrest of Pennsylvania poll workers, per Business Insider.
He has also built a substantial degree of wealth, mainly from his business ventures, speaking engagements and as the author of many nonfiction and alternative history fiction books. Now 80, Gingrich has received a pension from his time in Congress since 1989 and has long been able to collect Social Security benefits.
How Big Is Newt Gingrich’s Social Security Check?
Although there’s no mandatory public disclosure of tax returns required by law in the U.S., one can typically deduce plenty from the personal financial information that members of Congress and other key federal government officials are required to file every year, per the Ethics in Government Act.
However, it’s been over a decade since Gingrich has had to disclose any expense reports or tax returns, as when he released his financials during his run for president in 2012. A search shows that those filings, made at the age of 69, reveal he didn’t declare any Social Security claims or other non-investment income.
Gingrich represented Georgia’s 6th Congressional District in the House from 1979 to 1999 and served as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999. He would have been making the third-highest salary in Congress when he resigned. In 2023, speakers Nancy Pelosi, then McCarthy, were making $223,500, which is less than Vice President Harris and substantially less than President Biden.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that Gingrich and his wife, Callista, filed gross income of over $3.1 million in 2010 and paid over $994,000 in federal taxes (a 31.5% rate). He also received a federal pension of $76,200 that year. He didn’t, however, claim any Social Security income when he was 67.
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Does Newt Gingrich Collect Social Security?
If he is now collecting Social Security, it would be sizable, but perhaps not as large as you would think. Social Security benefits are based on an individual’s “average indexed monthly earnings” using up to 35 years of a worker’s earning history.
While Gingrich possibly waited until turning 70 to collect benefits and is truly wealthy now, it took him years while serving in Congress to accumulate his fortune. As Roll Call wrote back in 2011, Gingrich was “an impoverished Georgia college professor” when he first became a member of Congress, without any personal assets to his name.
He has certainly made up for those lean years. Celebrity Net Worth lists his fortune at $12 million — up from $2.4 million in 2006 and $6.7 million in 2011 — acquired primarily from a “multi-million-dollar promissory note from the Gingrich Group, LLC to Gingrich Productions, Inc., entities that are part of Gingrich’s eponymous network of nonprofit and for-profit organizations.”
It’s safe to say that Gingrich’s monthly Social Security payment, if he receives one, is at or near the maximum allowable amount of $4,555. Or, perhaps Gingrich, a long supporter of Social Security reform and partial privatisation, may not collect Social Security at all, deeming the monthly income non-essential at this point in his life.
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