NBER Working Paper Traces Family Origins of Members of Congress Born 1830–1950: Economic Elite Background Persists Across a Century and a Half
Key Takeaways
- •By 1940, nearly 60% of Members of Congress aged 18 to 40 held a college degree, versus fewer than 5% of similar young men outside Congress.
- •In 19th-century census records, Members of Congress had about three times the wealth of demographically matched controls.
- •The fathers of future Members of Congress were typically richer, better educated, and more wealthy than the fathers of non-MC peers.
- •The socioeconomic gap between congressional families and the broader population stayed stable or widened across successive cohorts.
- •Women’s suffrage, the secret ballot, direct primaries, and direct election of senators did not produce detectable changes in the types of people elected to Congress.
A new NBER working paper by James J. Feigenbaum, Andrew B. Hall, Daniel M. Thompson, and Jesse Yoder examines the family origins of Members of Congress (MCs) born between 1830 and 1950. The researchers link each MC, along with their parents and brothers, to the complete-count U.S. census records, creating a comprehensive dataset for analyzing socioeconomic backgrounds across multiple generations.
The study finds that future MCs have consistently been economic outliers throughout the period studied. By 1940, close to 60 percent of MCs aged 18–40 held a college degree, compared with fewer than 5 percent of demographically comparable young men outside of Congress. In the 19th-century censuses, MCs as adults held roughly three times the wealth of demographically matched controls drawn from the general population.
Beyond their individual economic standing, future MCs come from economically elite families. Their fathers earned more, attained higher levels of education, and accumulated greater wealth than the fathers of non-MC peers. The brothers of future MCs occupied a socioeconomic position between the general population and the MCs themselves. Across the various socioeconomic measures compared, the researchers calculate that roughly half of an MC's adult economic premium is shared with his brother, while the other half is attributable to his own characteristics.
The family background gap has widened rather than narrowed over the last century and a half. Metrics including household wealth, the presence of household servants, and four separate occupation-based scores all indicate that the gap either held steady or grew across successive cohorts. This trend persisted through periods of substantial economic transformation, including industrialization, the Great Depression, and the postwar expansion of mass higher education.
The researchers also evaluated four Progressive-Era reforms using a triple-difference research design: women's suffrage, the secret ballot, direct primaries, and the direct election of U.S. senators. These reforms, enacted between the 1890s and 1920s, were intended in part to reduce the influence of party machines and economic elites on candidate selection. None of these democratic reforms produced detectable shifts in the types of individuals who reached Congress.
The authors conclude that Congress has been drawn from the most economically fortunate families in American society in every birth cohort observed, a pattern that persisted despite sweeping changes in the American economy and political system over the 120-year study period. Because the analysis covers MCs born through 1950, the findings do not directly address whether more recent cohorts—those who entered Congress in the late 20th and early 21st centuries—show similar patterns, though the consistency across earlier cohorts raises the question.
The working paper is authored by James J. Feigenbaum, Andrew B. Hall, Daniel M. Thompson, and Jesse Yoder, and is available through the National Bureau of Economic Research. It was highlighted by Marginal Revolution.
