Claim about AOC being worth $29 million is still Pants on Fire!

Has Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., used her political power to get rich since she joined Congress in 2019?

That is what some social media users are saying in a persistent, but baseless, claim about her finances.

"AOC is worth 29 Million dollars! How did that happen, on $174,000 per year?" an Oct. 30 Threads post said.

The claim has circulated online since at least 2022, with some attributing it to Forbes magazine. Reuters fact-checkers in 2022 said a Forbes spokesperson said the magazine didn’t report the $29 million figure. Ocasio-Cortez’s website links to the Reuters article to debunk the claim.

PolitiFact debunked the $29 million claim in a June 2023 Pants on Fire! fact-check based on her most recent yearly financial disclosure report that all members of Congress must file. We also rejected a 2021 claim that Ocasio-Cortez was already a millionaire after two years in office.

Although the $29 million claim has been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers, versions of it continue to surface on social media.

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Facebook posts

stated on December 3, 2024 in a video

A “no-strings-attached $1,000 stimulus” check has been approved for “every U.S. resident” ahead of Donald Trump’s presidency.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not immediately return a request for comment, but her most recent financial disclosure report — filed Aug. 13 and covering 2023 — shows the representative is nowhere close to being worth $29 million.

She reported four assets worth $3,004 to $46,000. The report listed two bank accounts, a brokerage account and a 401(k) plan. That’s less than the $4,004 to $60,000 range for the same four assets she reported for 2022.

Her 2023 report also listed student loan liabilities from $15,001 to $50,000.

Ocasio-Cortez’s filings for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 show fairly consistent numbers for her assets and liabilities.

The yearly salary for most members of Congress is $174,000, although the House speaker, majority and minority leaders and the Senate president pro tempore make more. The salaries have remained unchanged since 2009, the Congressional Research Service said in June.

There’s no publicly available evidence that Ocasio-Cortez has turned her congressional salary into $29 million. We rate the claim Pants on Fire!