This graph shows the median wealth of US lawmakers in Congress from 2008 to 2018, for both chambers. In 2018, the median wealth in the Senate amounted to 1.76 million U.S. dollars.

This graph shows the median wealth of US lawmakers in Congress from 2004 to 2010, for both political parties. In 2010, the median wealth of Republican Congressmen stood at 881,786 US dollars.

The annual salary received by members of the United States Congress in 2025 is ******* U.S. dollars. This has been the case since 2009. The Government Ethics Reform Act of 1989 provides an automatic cost of living adjustment increase in line with the

Bolded multivariate results are statistically significant.

Characteristics of legislators in 117th congress (n = 535).

The data for the map is based on DoD 2006 annual report on DoD contracts. The original report has over 1.25 million contracts. For the current map, only those records worth $10K or more were selected, which were then geocoded and grouped by Defense contractor (52,127). Of which only those in the lower 48 states were selected (50,929) which were then geographically assigned and aggregated to 433 congressional districts (109th Congress). The ranking of congressional districts by dollar value of total defense contract is given below: 1. Virginia's 8th district $11.789 billion (985 defense contractors) 2. Virginia's 10th district $6.096 billion (664 defense contractors) 3. California's 53rd district $3.034 billion (325 defense contractors) 4. Virginia's 11th district $2.931 billion (514 defense contractors) 5. Alabama's 1st district $2.585 billion (335 defense contractors) Note that there are over 5000 defense contractors that are located outside of the 50 U.S. states and Wash. D.C., with total defense contracts worth $7.066 billlion. The largest among these is worth over $1.45 billion to a company providing warehousing services and is based in a middle-east country.

In 2023, the gross federal debt in the United States amounted to around ****** U.S. dollars per capita. This is a moderate increase from the previous year, when the per capita national debt amounted to about ****** U.S. dollars. The total debt accrued by the U.S. annually can be accessed here. Federal debt of the United States The level of national debt held by the United States government has risen sharply in the years following the Great Recession. Federal debt is the amount of debt the federal government owes to creditors who hold assets in the form of debt securities. As with individuals and consumers, there is a common consensus among economists that holding debt is not necessarily problematic for government so long as the public debt is held at a sustainable level. Although there is no agreed upon ratio of debt to gross domestic product, the increasing debt held by the Federal Reserve has become a major part of the political discourse in the United States. Politics and the national debt In recent years, debate over the debt ceiling has been of concern to domestic politicians, the owners of federal debt, and global economy as a whole. The debt ceiling is a legislated maximum amount that national debt can reach intended to impose a degree of fiscal prudence on incumbent governments. However, as national debt has grown the debt ceiling has been reached, thus forcing legislative action by Congress. In both 2011 and 2013, new legislation was passed by Congress allowing the debt ceiling to be raised. The Budget Control Act of 2011 and the No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013 successively allowed the government to avoid defaulting on national debt and therefore avert a potential economic crisis.