Viral post baselessly claims Ocasio-Cortez has a net worth of $29 million | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·4 min read
5
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

The claim: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a net worth of $29 million

A March 5 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows images of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing and pouring a drink.

“A broke bartender elected to Congress, assumes office in 2019 with a salary of $155,000 is now worth $29 million and the DOJ is prosecuting Donald Trump,” the post’s caption states.

It was liked more than 1,000 times in 10 days. Similar versions of the post were shared hundreds of times on X, formerly Twitter, and on Facebook.

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Our rating: False

There is no credible evidence her net worth is that high. Ocasio-Cortez has at most $60,000 in assets and up to $50,000 in student loan debt, according to the most recent financial disclosure document that she, as a member of Congress, must file each year.

AOC’s assets total no more than $60,000, documents show

Ocasio-Cortez has routinely drawn criticism from conservatives during three terms in Congress over an agenda that includes criminal justice reform and fighting climate change. The claim in the post attempts to compare the circumstances of her rise with the legal issues faced by former President Donald Trump, who has been indicted four times and owes more than half a billion dollars in court judgments.

But the assertion that her net worth has climbed into the tens of millions is baseless, according to both an expert and the congresswoman’s financial disclosure documents.

Fact check: Ocasio-Cortez tweet about printing money originated as satire

“This person is either fully making it up or saw a number and completely misunderstood what the number was,” said David Karpf, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University and an expert on political communication.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress and some other employees to file financial disclosures annually. Documents covering 2023 are due by May 15, according to the House Ethics Committee.

Ocasio-Cortez’s most recent filing for 2022 showed four assets – savings, checking, brokerage and 401(k) accounts – each worth no more than $15,000, for a maximum total of $60,000. Those assets are offset by student loan debt between $15,001 and $50,000.

The New York Democrat’s bartender-turned-congresswoman story is well-documented. She lived paycheck to paycheck during most of her 20s, according to a 2019 profile in Time, and the campaign finance tracking website OpenSecrets ranked her as one of the poorest members of the freshman class elected to Congress in 2018.

The most charitable explanation of the claim is that the poster wrongly included Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign contributions with her personal wealth, Karpf said. But even those numbers don’t add up: While her political campaign raised a total of $39.9 million since 2017, its expenditures leave only $5.7 million in cash on hand, according to OpenSecrets.

It is not just inaccurate to lump campaign funds in with net worth. Doing so also would serve as an allegation of serious wrongdoing. The Federal Election Commission prohibits using that money for personal reasons, and candidates have faced criminal charges for doing so. No credible evidence exists that Ocasio-Cortez has done such a thing.

“The only way you get to tens of millions of dollars for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez anywhere is if you’re looking at campaign budget instead of personal net worth – which would be stupid and misinformation,” Karpf said.

The claim appears to have originated on a website that in 2022 wrongly attributed the $29 million figure to Forbes. That magazine has never reported on Ocasio-Cortez’s net worth, spokesperson Laura Brusca told USA TODAY.

The Instagram post also gets Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional salary wrong. Members of Congress have been paid $174,000 annually since 2009, according to the Congressional Research Service and the congressional database Legistorm.

Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent subject of misinformation online. USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that her net worth was more than $1 million and that she faces jail time for campaign finance violations.

USA TODAY reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s office in the House and to her campaign but did not immediately receive a response from either. The Instagram user who shared the post could not be reached.

FactCheck.org also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here.

USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Baseless claim AOC has a net worth of $29 million | Fact check