Freshmen in 112th Congress Exceedingly Wealthy Despite Struggling National Economy

Center for Responsive Politics Reports on wealth of Freshman House and Senate Members – [To download a spreadsheet containing raw data in part used to produce this report, click here: personalfinances_3_2011.xls]

  • “No matter that they’re the newest kids in Congress. Like their veteran counterparts, U.S. House and U.S. Senate freshmen are together a notably wealthy bunch, enjoying exponentially greater wealth than most of the Americans they represent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of federal personal financial disclosure reports. Sixty percent of Senate freshman and more than 40 percent of House freshmen are millionaires, the Center’s study finds. Roughly 1 percent of Americans at large claim the same lofty financial status…Freshmen congressmen also appear generally immune to the nation’s persistently soft economy, in which joblessness still hovers around 9 percent and many of the country’s regions continue to claw their way back from the recent recession. The Center calculates that the median estimated wealth for Senate freshman is $3.96 million. For House freshmen, it’s $570,418. The House number is slightly less than the median wealth of the 111th House, as calculated by the Center in November based on personal financial disclosure reports released in 2009 — the most recent reports publicly available. But the wealth of Senate freshmen in the 112th Congress is, on average, greater than the average wealth of senators from the 111th Congress.”
    • LinkedIn
    Posted in: Congress
    ➤