How Do Congress Members’ Ages Compare to the Nation and the States They Represent?
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While the U.S. Congress has a wide range of ages (from 27 to 90), it seems to be much older than the rest of the country.
In this analysis, I wanted to see just how much older Congress is compared to the country and if either chamber or either major party tends to be older than the other. Then, I wanted to see how Congress members compare to the states they represent.
First, let us look at some of the Congress members on the extreme ends of the range. Some of the youngest congress members include:
- Maxwell Frost (FL-D) - 27
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-D) - 34
- Sara Jacobs (CA-D) - 35
- Greg Caser (TX-D) - 35
- Anna Paulina Luna (FL-R) - 35
With some of the oldest congress members being:
- Chuck Grassley (IA-R) - 90
- Grace F. Napolitano (CA-D) - 87
- Harold Rogers (KY-R) - 86
- Maxine Waters (CA-D) - 86
- Steny H. Hoyer (MD-D) - 85
Congress Compared to the Country
Now, let’s compare Congress to the country overall. In recent years, the median age of the United States has been around 39.
How does that compare to Congress? The median age of members in Congress is 60 years old, 21 years older than the country’s, with Senators being 6 years older and Representatives 1 year younger.
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 Democrats 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 (New York, with a 9-year difference) and the state with the largest difference (Idaho, with a 36-year difference).
Methodology
For the median age of country and states, I found a dataset from the Census Bureau that I could as-is.
Then, I used the congress.gov API to get data for all members of the Senate and House of Representatives. I calculated the required median ages using this data.
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.
Note: There are currently four 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
U.S. Census Bureau. “Age and Sex.” American Community Survey, ACS 1-Year Estimates Subject Tables, Table S0101, 2022, https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2022.S0101. Accessed on August 31, 2024.