Two decades ago, Hakeem Jeffries was a litigator for CBS. Fresh off his work fighting a suit against the network over Janet Jackson’s unfortunate “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, he was profiled for Crain’s New York Business. The publication speculated on his future in politics, starting with an anticipated run for a state Assembly seat in Brooklyn. “Winning would mean a massive pay cut and a commute to dreary Albany,” the article noted, but Jeffries wasn’t deterred. “Public service involves sacrifice,” he told Crain’s.
His 2006 victory, which finally earned him a seat for which he’d run twice before and a state legislator salary of $79,500, set him up for a career in politics that has made him House Democrats’ leader during the ongoing government shutdown. And while he certainly sacrificed financially compared to an alternative life as a corporate lawyer, Jeffries remains comfortable, with apartments in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., two pensions and plenty of cash left over after putting his kids through college. Put it all together, and Forbes estimates that Jeffries’ net worth is about $2 million. That’s more than his Republican counterpart, House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose fortune Forbes put at $350,000 last year; but less than the Senate’s leaders, Republican John Thune and Democrat (and fellow Brooklynite) Chuck Schumer, who are worth $3 million and $7 million respectively.
Jeffries’ parents were both public servants: His father worked as a substance abuse counselor for the state of New York after serving in the Air Force and his mother made her career as a social worker. Their future politician son was born in 1970 in Brooklyn, and Jeffries was raised in Crown Heights until 1988, when he headed off to Binghamton University in upstate New York to study political science. Graduating in 1992, he quickly added two more degrees, a master’s in public policy from Georgetown University in 1994 and a law degree from New York University in 1997. That same year, he married Kennisandra Arciniegas, whom he reportedly met at Binghamton and who now works for a legal services organization. The pair had two sons shortly after.
After clerking for a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, Jeffries went to work for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, a white shoe New York law firm (which has recently made headlines for drawing Donald Trump’s ire and subsequently agreeing to provide the administration with $40 million in pro bono legal services). But he also tried his hand at politics, running for a Brooklyn-based seat in the New York state assembly in 2000. He lost the Democratic primary by 18 points to Roger Green, a two-decade incumbent. When he considered running again in 2002, Jeffries found that his apartment had been drawn out of Green’s district by mere blocks, a 2023 profile recalls. “The redistricting was a more genteel version of a rock through your window,” Errol Louis, a fellow political aspirant at the time, told Politico.
No matter. Jeffries stayed with Paul Weiss, then moved to litigation at Viacom and CBS. In December 2005, he sold the apartment that had been drawn out of the 57th district for $506,000—and apparently moved a few blocks, because he ran again and won the seat in 2006, this time in an open primary.
Jeffries put down more permanent roots in the district in 2007, buying a three-bedroom apartment in Prospect Heights for $559,000 that he and his wife still live in today. At the time, they borrowed about $425,000 to do so. They have repeatedly tapped their home equity for cash, and Forbes estimates that they have at least that much borrowed against the property today—but the apartment’s value has soared and now stands at an estimated $1.6 million in value before debt.
The newly minted politician supplemented his income with work for a personal injury firm called Godosky and Gentile, earning about $116,000 in 2011 and $60,000 in 2012. His flight up the political ladder also paid well: In 2012, he won a seat in the House of Representatives that more than doubled his salary to $174,000. When he entered Congress, most of his and his wife’s savings were in retirement accounts and life insurance policies, though he did declare a credit union account worth between $15,000 and $50,000 owned by his wife.
2015 was a big year, financially: Despite leaving Godosky and Gentile when he went to Washington, Jeffries retained an interest in cases he’d worked on, and his disclosure from that year shows a $1.6 million total payout from them. He put between $100,000 and $200,000 into two 529 college savings accounts, bought up a collection of exchange-traded funds and kept a decent chunk in cash or money market accounts. In 2017, he bought an apartment in D.C.'s up-and-coming Navy Yard neighborhood in 2017 for $325,000. It’s worth about $500,000 today before an estimated $350,000 or so of debt.
His political ascent continued apace. Jeffries became the Democrats’ caucus chair in 2019 and was appointed as a manager during Donald Trump’s first impeachment in 2020, helping argue the House majority’s case in front of the Senate, which ultimately acquitted the president. In 2023, Jeffries took over Democratic leadership from outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, becoming the minority leader in a newly GOP-run House (and taking a salary bump, to $193,400.)
In recent years, Jeffries’ finances have been dominated by paying for his kids’ college. According to a LinkedIn profile that appears to be his, in 2019, Jeffries’ oldest son went to Binghamton like his dad, then transferred to Boston University in 2020, where the cost of attendance is around $90,000 annually today. He’s now pursuing a J.D. at Georgetown. (It’s unclear where Jeffries’ youngest son went to school.)
Starting in 2019, Jeffries reports escalating sales of holdings in the 529 accounts. On his most recent disclosure from the end of 2024, the accounts were almost completely drained. The couple's investment portfolio appears to have shrunk as well, and today, they have between $280,000 and $880,000 in liquid assets, down from a range of $440,000 to $1.2 million in 2018. In addition, they took out a home equity line of credit against their New York apartment in 2022. The declared range for the loan went from “$15,000 to $50,000” in 2022 and 2023 to “$100,000 to $250,000” in 2024. Finally, Jeffries’ largest liability on his disclosure other than real estate debt is a student loan, taken out in August 2024, for $15,000-$50,000. His office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Forbes’ valuation or his recent financial moves.
Jeffries doesn’t have any more massive legal payouts headed his way, at least while in office, but the 55-year-old’s financial future looks bright nonetheless. If Democrats take back the House of Representatives in 2026, Jeffries will almost certainly be their choice for Speaker, which would boost his pay to $223,500. That, plus additional years of service in Congress in his safe blue seat, would boost the value of his pension, which he could draw on as early as age 62. Plus, former House speakers tend to do pretty well after eventually leaving office—just look at Paul Ryan, who joined the Fox Corporation’s board in 2019 and makes over $350,000 annually.