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The Average Age and Years Served of Members of US Congress Every Year Since 1789
- ardent_uno 8y agoIt would be better to see the difference between average age of members of Congress and average age at which people died in the year considered. What I suspect this would show is that seniority in Congress, at least on a relative comparison basis, has actually not increased. Length of tenure obviously has, but the numbers must be put in the context of their age to be properly interpreted.
- awat 8y agoI was just about to mention this, the relationship between life expectancy and age of politician would really help to interpret this data. My hypothesis is that late stage capitalism has moved the ability to have the resources and freedom to run for office into later years since 1995 as inflation adjusted income stagnates. Edit: anyone care to explain the downvoting? I clearly marked this as a hypothesis as signficant economic changes have occured during this time frame. I have asserted nothing as fact.
- linkregister 8y agoIt's probably the slur, "late stage capitalism" on a website for entrepreneurs and employees of for-profit companies.
- awat 8y agoFair enough, even as an employee for a large for-profit corp I’ve never thought of that term as a slur. Regardless It’s a catchall term that should probably be overwritten with more specificity. Thanks for taking the time!
- dv_dt 8y agoIt would be interesting to see other measures of tenure served over a similar scale. I suspect that a lot of our political problems are multiplied because the current body of politicians in the US got to step into power earlier, then due to increasing life expectancy, keep that power longer than any before them.
- mkempe 8y agoIt would also be interesting to distinguish the seats that are "inherited" within political dynasties, as well as the seats that have been buttressed by gerrymandering.
- dfee 8y agoIt’s unfortunate to not see life expectancy explicitly mentioned. There does seem to be a correlation between average age of the congressman and average years served, though. I’m assuming that reflects the life expectancy piece.
- duxup 8y agoAlso quality of life (if that can be measured). You can be alive, but not doing very well to the point that you retire or etc.
- daxorid 8y agoMy understanding of historical life expectancy is that, adjusting for infant mortality and wars, we aren't significantly longer-lived now than in the 19th century. Specifically, once you've made it to 40, you're nearly as likely to make 76 then as now. I will try to dig up a source and edit as soon as I find time. edit: Found a very useful source, though it only weakly corroborates my initial comment. The vast majority of gains in life expectancy have indeed been for infant mortality and early-life infections, but there is still roughly a seven year differential in the life expectancy of of a forty year old: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
- moultano 8y agoThe gains are more modest at 40 than at birth, but still significant. https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Life-e...
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- whoopdedo 8y agoBut more people are making it to 40 and thus surviving longer, making the average age of the population higher. The two prominent changes in age come at the end of the 19th century when sanitary practice was introduced into medicine, and the middle of the 20th century when antibiotics began to be used. This indirectly increases the age of members of congress. I agree with what Alex3917 says above, that it has to do with needing to win votes from more and older voters. The graphs in the second half of the article also show that incumbency has increased, because longer living voters will support the familiar name. Then there was a dip in the '70s I assume from a combined factors of many of the older members retiring at the same time there was significant cultural change happening. Also on the graph of members of the House, there's a sudden rise in age at the start of the 21st century. The Senate graph has no corresponding change. I can only make a wild guess but that would be the amount of money that can be made in the private sector is so much more now that younger people are staying away from public service.
- blfr 8y agoDespite people's low opinion of politicians they seem to be steadily improving in their most important skill -- getting reelected.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoVoters have low opinions of other voters' politicians. They like their own. Hence we seem to have quite a hard time getting things done which benefit the nation as a whole.
- stronglikedan 8y ago> They like their own. I'd say that's true for the vocal minority of cheerleaders, but I would wager that most people are just voting against other candidates at this point. I.e., the lesser of two evils.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThat's true, I guess there is usually some significant block of voters that politicians are appeasing to which can't be overcome by the general voting public on that one issue (such as government employees voting themselves defined benefit pensions, or a concentrated group of religious people pushing a religious agenda, or employees of a large employer(s), etc).
- tibbon 8y agoI'd like to see approval rating (when we have them) mapped over this data, and also some metric for how much they actually got done (bills passed vs brought to vote?) I can't help but feel (and I wish I had more data for this) that Congress is doing less and less over time.
- thedaveoflife 8y agoSeemingly relevant, this recent meme being shared in China: https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/998932355527139328 https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/998932355527139328
- numbers 8y agoThat's very interesting! thanks for sharing!
- aphextron 8y agoThis is all I can think about these days watching the news. My generation (millenials) are forced to just sit by and watch as these senile dinosaurs rip our country to shreds and destroy our standing in the world for their own blind greed. And the pieces that we will be left to pick up after these cretins die out may not be enough to put back together.
- ataturk 8y agoXer here, welcome to the party, pal!
- surgeryres 8y agoAt what point though must we consider that we, the American people, elected these people into office? They are there because we put them there. To play my own devil's advocate, my perception is that the barrier to entry into politics, i.e. money, has risen substantially which prevents younger candidates from even running for office.
- emodendroket 8y agoWho are "we"? I didn't vote for them.
- pwinnski 8y agoThat's how democracy works. If you can convince enough people in your area to vote for your preferred candidate, you're happy. If not, then not. Every one of these representatives is there because they got the majority of votes.
- emodendroket 8y agoTaking this idea to its most extreme expression, we would end up saying that a minority persecuted by a democraticrally-elected government is to blame for its own persecution, as it failed to convince others to vote against ethnic cleansing.
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- ataturk 8y agoI'm not saying the US was more democratic in the past, but if you're going to have a representative democracy, you need more people acting as representatives, not lifetime POS Senators like McCain and Pelosi.
- ta1357 8y agoFor about the last decade or so, I've held on to the idea that there ought to be a maximum age for elected officials. Ideally, in my view, 60. As I myself have aged, and watched those around me age, I'm really quite struck by just how many people reach 68 or so and spend an inordinate amount of time looking back, fondly, on their prime years. It seems incredibly natural for that sort of nostalgia to arise, as the body decays. I can't help but think it also leads to "back in my day..." style thinking, and the mythical "golden past" to which we need to return. When you've reached such a mental state, I suspect you're no longer as capable of thinking critically about the future as someone younger, someone who still has a future. You've got no skin in the game anymore, and when that happens you're no longer fit to serve in any decision making capacity. Act as advisor, absolutely. But without skin in the game, you'll do precisely what our gov't has done: mortgage our future for gains today, and completely screw over coming generations. It's a weak rationale, I admit. Borne of my own biases against the status quo, for sure. Still I can't help thinking its a good idea. An enforced retirement age for elected officials would be in public interest.
- fredley 8y agoTo counter that argument: with age comes experience. People who are 65 have witnessed a huge amount more history than people who are 35. They have seen the cycles of the World turn more times, they have more understanding of human nature and how people respond in irrational ways to policy. (However, I do agree with you that there should still be a maximum age, how you would introduce it - especially to a political system where it would cause almost every elected official to lose out - is beyond me)
- rubicon33 8y agoIt's almost as if - gasp - we need a balance of power! Perhaps a system in which a "House of Future", and "House of Past", compete for resources (votes) would help promote a government that was conscious of making investments that support not JUST the aging generation (house of past).
- fredley 8y ago
- kingbirdy 8y agoBased on the age and tenure graphs, it seems a lot of representatives in their 50s were voted in during the 90s, and relatively few of those have been replaced. This would be the Baby Boomers coming in to their full political strength. However, there seems to be a similar wave of fresh-faced, long-sitting senators coming in the early 80s, and I'm not sure what generation that would map to. The "Greatest Generation", perhaps?
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- theresistor 8y agoAt a guess, 1980 marked the rise of the "Christian right" / "religious right" as organized forces in conservative politics. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority was founded in 1979, for instance.
- slg 8y agoI think there are two important pieces of data that might lend insight into this. What is the average age of the population as a whole and the average age of the voting population? It makes sense as the population gets older with the baby boomers aging that the government also gets older with them. That might not be "fair" but it is the way representative democracy works. Also no one currently votes with the frequency and consistency of senior citizens and they therefore have a disproportional impact on the government. That has been true as long as I can remember, but has that always been the case?
- cafard 8y agoI believe that part of the explanation for the increase is that politics is more and more a high-stakes business. The parties are reluctant to swap out a known winner and risk losing a seat. I admit that this does not account for cases such as Strom Thurmond or Orrin Hatch on the one side or Dianne Feinstein on the other.
- dollar 8y agoWe made structural changes to our government in the 1920s-1930s and this is one of the long term effects. 1. Congress on its own decided that 435 representatives was "enough" and ceased apportionment. Since then representation has diluted from approximately 100000:1 to 1000000:1. 2. We changed the way the Senate was elected, from a majority of each state's legislature, to a popular vote. The result is that we have effectively created 2 Senates. Winning a majority vote of so many people requires massive funding. Hence, the profound corruption we live in today. http://www.thirty-thousand.org/ http://www.thirty-thousand.org/
- vkou 8y agoIf winning a majority vote from the public requires massive funding and corruption, what, pray tell, does winning a majority vote from a ruling class require?
- dollar 8y agoI'm simply advocating apportionment as the founders intended with Amendment the First.
- vkou 8y agoThe founders also very explicitly intended for the aristocracy to control the government, because the proles (even land-owning ones!) can't be entrusted to make good decisions. A lot of what they intended was incredibly self-serving, at the expense of their subjects.
- snowwrestler 8y agoI think it is hilarious to say you're concerned about corruption and then complain about the 17th Amendment. > Winning a majority vote of so many people requires massive funding. Yeah, well, it's a lot cheaper to buy the votes of a few state legislators, which is why we passed the 17th Amendment in the first place.
- rllin 8y agoWhy is this a priori bad? Take a look at how the short tenures of California congress has turned California way more populist than most people are comfortable with. There are many things wrong with short tenures (not that there aren't things wrong with long ones). The main ones include turnover of associated staff who actually know what wheels to grease to get things done. Meanwhile the "figurehead" actual politician has no time to build up political capital with his colleagues.
- openasocket 8y agoI completely agree. I find it a little strange that with politicians, unique among all occupations, we consider experience with the job to be a bad thing. I think the discontent many feel with Congress can be better fixed via other means than direct term limits.
- pwinnski 8y agoIt's not bad in or of itself, but as the post points out, it correlates with ever-worsening approval scores.
- SilasX 8y agoIsn't this (the trend toward longer terms) due to the rewards for seniority that Congress gives itself, specifically to make it harder to be voted out? I mean, every time, voters basically face the dilemma: "Oh, he voted for stupid policies? Cool. He's also the third most senior member. You can replace him, if you want to start with a new congressman with the least seniority."
- danso 8y agoThe authors mention "having built a database of the over 13,000 members of Congress since 1789" but I didn't see a link to their dataset. FWIW, the folks who contribute to the Github unitedstates repo has historical data in CSV/JSON form: https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators
- motiw 8y agoSomething to think about. Congress approval rating is at all time low, about 19%, however years members serve is at all time high
- soheil 8y agoThis should be adjusted for life expectancy increase.
- Andre_Wanglin 8y agoBehold the development of a permanent ruling class, complete with hereditary dynasties.
- thegayngler 8y agoI think term limits are the answer here. Twelve years is plenty for a congressman or senator.