Speaking Fees for Former Presidents Top $750,000

Bill Clinton - $750,000

Former President Bill Clinton has made the most of any modern president on the speaking circuit. He gives dozens of speeches a year and each brings in between $250,000 and $500,000 per engagement, according to published reports. He also earned $750,000 for a single speech in Hong Kong in 2011. 

In the decade or so after Clinton left office, from 2001 through 2012, he made at least $104 million in speaking fees, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Clinton makes no bones about why he charges so much.

“I gotta pay our bills,” he told NBC News.

Barack Obama - $400,000

Less than a year after leaving office, former President Barack Obama came under fire from fellow Democrats when it was revealed he was being paid $1.2 million for three separate speeches to Wall Street groups. That's $400,000 per speech.

The $400,000 appeared to be Obama's standard fee, as he had already been paid the same amount for a conversation with presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the U.K.'s Independent reported. But it was the coziness with Wall Street that bothered those on the left.

Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president, defended the speeches, saying all Obama's appearances had given him a chance to say things "true to his values." He continued:

“His paid speeches in part have allowed President Obama to contribute $2m to Chicago programs offering job training and employment opportunities to low-income youth.”

George W. Bush - $175,000

Former President George W. Bush earns between $100,000 and $175,000 per speech and is considered one of the most prolific speech-makers in modern politics.

The news source Politico has documented Bush's appearances on the speaking circuit and found he's been the keynote in at least 200 events since leaving office. 

Do the math. That amounts to at least $20 million and as much as $35 million in speaking fees he's raked in. Though it should come as no surprise given his stated intention upon leaving off to “replenish the ol’ coffers.”

Politico reported in 2015 that Bush does his speaking,

"in private, in convention centers and hotel ballrooms, resorts and casinos, from Canada to Asia, from New York to Miami, from all over Texas to Las Vegas a bunch, playing his part in what has become a lucrative staple of the modern post-presidency."

Jimmy Carter - $50,000

Former President Jimmy Carter "seldom accepts speaking fees," The Associated Press wrote in 2002, "and when he does he typically donates the proceeds to his charitable foundation." His fee for speaking about health care, government and politics, and retirement and aging was listed at $50,000 at one time, though.

Carter was openly critical of Ronald Reagan at one time for taking $1 million for a single speech. Carter said he'd never take that much, but added quickly: "I've never been offered that much."

"That's not what I want out of life," Carter said in 1989. "We give money. We don't take it."