The Former Presidents Act

When Harry Truman left office in 1953 he had no pension and, by his own account, paid for his correspondence and office out of pocket. Congress responded with the Former Presidents Act, signed on August 25, 1958. It gives each former President a lifetime pension equal to the salary of a Cabinet secretary, Level I of the Executive Schedule, about 253,000 dollars in 2026, along with office space, an allowance for staff, travel funds, and free mailing privileges, administered by the General Services Administration. Surviving spouses receive a pension of 20,000 dollars a year.

Other laws add more. Former Presidents and their spouses receive lifetime Secret Service protection under a 2013 law that restored the lifetime rule after Congress had limited it to ten years for Presidents taking office after 1997, and their minor children are protected until age 16. Presidential libraries are built with private donations and then operated by the National Archives under the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 and later amendments. Former Presidents may also receive intelligence briefings as a courtesy of the sitting President, a practice revoked for one former President in 2021 and for another in 2025.

Spending under the act totals a few million dollars a year across all living former Presidents, small next to the cost of their protection. Former Presidents face few legal limits on what they do after leaving office and can earn large sums from books, speeches, and boards. Some lawmakers have proposed capping the allowances or reducing the pension for former Presidents with large outside income, arguing that the act was meant to prevent hardship, not subsidize wealth, while others say the benefits are a modest way to support continued public service by former leaders.