3 ms·
Congressmen's children are overrepresented in the military. As of 2007 12 senators and representatives out of 535 (2%) had kids in the armed forces. By comparis
by TMWNN 5y ago
Congressmen's children are overrepresented in the military. As of 2007 12 senators and representatives out of 535 (2%) had kids in the armed forces. By comparison, there are 1.5 million active duty and 1.5 million reserve/guard soldiers in the US, or 3 million out of 310 million (1%).
In the 2008 US presidential election, three of four presidential and vice-presidential candidates (Biden, McCain, Palin) had children serving in Afghanistan or Iraq.
- tialaramex 5y agoThat seems like you're not comparing apples versus apples. If there are 3 million military personnel in the US, because humans have sexual reproduction [meaning two parents per individual] that means they would have up to 6 million distinct adult parents, out of about 250 million US adults, making the Congress pretty normal with about 2% of its members being parents to service members. A more detailed demographic analysis might tell us something more interesting, but would of necessity also reduce the size of the comparison so it would be less statistically valid (e.g. age breakdown, because of how time works humans have more children when they're older, Congress is older than the US workforce)