Only about half of Americans think Donald Trump was born into wealth

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, was a wealthy man when his son was born in 1946, having at that point spent 20 years buying and selling homes as well as owning one of the country's first supermarkets. Things only went up from there: "By the 1970s, Fred was a multi-millionaire," The Week explains here. "When he died in 1999, he was worth as much as $300 million."

But many Americans do not think Donald Trump was born into wealth, a Mason poll shared with The Washington Post indicates. Only 42 percent of Republicans and 53 percent of Democrats think Fred Trump was "wealthy" when his son Donald was born, the poll found. "Most of the rest were relatively evenly split between [thinking Trump was] upper middle class, middle class, and working class — suggesting that they believe that Fred Trump's social class was essentially the same as the people in Queens who were buying his homes in the 1920s for about $4,000 (or roughly $56,000 in today's dollars)," The Washington Post reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.