Congress is meant to represent the American people, but the people making federal law have a median age of 60, while the people living under it have a median age of 39.
I wanted to see just how much older Congress is compared to the country, whether either chamber or major party skews the numbers, and how each delegation compares to the state it actually represents.
To understand the range before looking at medians, here are some of the youngest current Congress members:
- Maxwell Frost (FL-D) - 29
- Addison P. McDowell (NC-R) - 32
- Brandon Gill (TX-R) - 32
- Yassamin Ansari (AZ-D) - 34
- Abraham J. Hamadeh (AZ-R) - 35
And some of the oldest:
- Chuck Grassley (IA-R) - 92
- Harold Rogers (KY-R) - 88
- Maxine Waters (CA-D) - 88
- Steny H. Hoyer (MD-D) - 87
- James E. Clyburn (SC-D) - 86
Congress Compared to the Country
According to the most recent U.S. Census ACS, the median age of the United States has been around 39. The median age of Congress is 60, with Senators coming in 7 years higher than that and Representatives being just 1 year below.
Next, is either major party more likely to have younger or older members in Congress? Not really. Both parties are within one year of the overall median age of Congress, with Republicans being just slightly older.
Based on these findings, Congress tends to be 21 years older than the country, and both chambers and major parties do not deviate too far from that, though the Senate is slightly older than the House of Representatives.
Congress Members Compared to States They Represent
While comparing to the country is helpful to get a sense of overall ages, what is arguably more important is how members compare to the states they represent. If a state has a much older population than other states, it might make sense for some of its representatives to be older to align with their constituents.
Interestingly, while all states have congress members who are older than their population, there is a large gap between the state with the smallest difference (Colorado, with a 9-year difference) and the state with the largest difference (Idaho, with an almost 38-year difference).
What the Age Gap Means for Representation
No state sends a congressional delegation that reflects its own population’s age, and in most states, that gap exceeds 20 years. That uniformity is striking, but so is the variation. Colorado’s 9-year gap and Idaho’s nearly 38-year gap both exist within the same institution, shaped by the same electoral rules.
The age gap also isn’t a partisan problem. Both major parties sit within a year of the same median, which suggests this is a structural feature of American politics, as incumbency advantages, fundraising networks, and career trajectories consistently favor older candidates regardless of party affiliation.
Whether that matters depends on what you think representation requires. Age doesn’t determine how a member votes, and older members aren’t necessarily less effective at representing younger constituents. But if you believe a legislature should roughly reflect the people it governs, Congress has a long way to go.
Methodology
For state and national median ages, I used the Census Bureau’s ACS 1-Year Estimates, which required no additional cleaning.
I then used the congress.gov API to pull data for all current members of the Senate and House of Representatives and calculated median ages from that dataset.
For the state analysis, I combined members of the Senate and members of the House of Representatives from a given state and calculated their median age to compare against the state’s median age.
One important caveat in the state-level analysis is that delegation size affects how sensitive the median is to any single member. Large states like California and Texas have dozens of representatives, so no single member can dramatically shift the delegation’s median age. Small states are far more vulnerable to individual outliers. Vermont’s 35-year gap, for example, is largely driven by its two senators both being in their late 70s and early 80s.
Note: There are currently a few vacancies in Congress. However, since there are over 500 members, the median ages will likely remain the same once those are filled.
Sources
Congress.gov API: https://api.congress.gov. Accessed on 11 Apr 2026.
U.S. Census Bureau. “Age and Sex.” American Community Survey, ACS 1-Year Estimates Subject Tables, Table S0101, https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2024.S0101?g=010XX00US,$0400000. Accessed on 11 Apr 2026.