Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/Rebecca Zisser/Insider
America has always been ruled by a class of political leaders older than the population. This has largely been the case since the early 1800s, when the average age of an American was about 17 and the average age of a member of Congress was 44. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the country gradually aged as Congress gradually aged.
But in the early 1990s, something changed. Congress began to age much faster. This chart shows how congressional and federal judges have aged over time, from our nation’s founding to the present day.
Today, about a quarter of congressmen are over 70, the highest percentage ever. While half of the country is 38 or younger, only 5 percent of members of Congress can make the same claim.
It wasn’t just that the oldest members of Congress were getting older. Even younger members of Congress have generally aged, pushing the average age of a member of Congress past 60. From 1950 to 1990, an average of 10% of members of Congress were under the age of 40. This became as high as 17% in the early 1980s. But today, with older members staying longer, the average since 2000 is just 4%.
This effect is not only seen in legislators. The federal judiciary has grown increasingly old. When analyzing the entire judiciary—active judges and senior judges who have partially retired but can still carry a full caseload for the remainder of their years—the average age of judges and justices is at an all-time high. And it’s growing.
The Trump and Biden years were an anomaly: It’s rare for a president to be the oldest person in his administration, even if the president is a bit older.
The age of the cabinet—the unelected group of top executive branch officials appointed by the president—has remained fairly stable over the past few decades. But for the past several years, the president has been significantly older than the average member of his cabinet.
What is causing this remarkable rise in the age of government? The Insider unravels America’s march toward gerontocracy through the lenses of power, position, money, transformation, and ego. We assess what it means for a young nation to be led by leaders who have lived through most of their years.
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