Biden highlights bootstraps lifestyle

Vice President Biden on Monday sought to highlight his middle-class credentials, even as Hillary Clinton struggles with questions about her and President Clinton’s wealth.

Appearing at a White House summit on working families, Biden said he was regularly rated as the poorest member of Congress and did not have a savings account.

{mosads}“Don’t hold it against me that I don’t own a single stock or bond,” said Biden, who, like Clinton, is thought to be interested in running for the White House in 2016.

Biden said he struggled to raise his family after the car crash that took the life of his first wife, though he acknowledged his Senate salary far outpaced the average person.

He said things were tough as a single father, even though he had a good salary and an “incredible family.”

“Not all of us had the opportunity, not all of us had that outside help,” Biden said.

Biden added that during that time he regularly thought about an employee who was raising three children on her own without the “all this help, and the overwhelming good will of a state who wrapped its arms around me.”

Biden also sought to highlight his good future. He noted that he was wearing a “mildly expensive suit” and that he “makes a lot of money as vice president of the United States.” 

Biden might draw some flak for his remarks.

Despite claiming not to have a savings account, the vice present’s 2013 financial disclosure forms show that Biden has a savings account with the U.S. Senate federal credit union valued at between $1,000 and $15,000. 

The vice president’s total assets are valued at between $276,000 and $940,000 according to the disclosure report.

Clinton, who is widely regarded as the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has repeatedly fumbled questions about her wealth in recent weeks.

In an interview with The Guardian published Sunday, she said she was unlike other multimillionaires who are “truly well off.”

“We pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” Clinton said.

Earlier this month, Republicans seized on Clinton’s assertion in an ABC News interview that she and her husband were “dead broke” when they left the White House and “struggled” when they were paying the mortgages on two homes and for their daughter’s college education.

Both Hillary and former President Bill Clinton have made millions from book deals and can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single paid speech.

Hillary Clinton has emphasized that when they left the White House, the Clintons were in debt.