IIRC, the $400K salary didn’t kick in till Bush ran for office. But nobody mentioned Bill’s full pension salary upon leaving office. They were not ‘’dead broke’’. And, by virtue of their positions, they had alternate means of income. That’s not ‘dead broke’ either.
Understandably, they went through some tough financial times. I don’t doubt that. But dead broke, they weren’t.
The point is, the tough financial times were mostly due to legal debts, which in turn were due to Bill’s own, self-inflicted wounds, due to his bad behavior with women.