There are *** members of the House of Representatives in any congressional sitting. In the ***** Congress which began in January 2023, there were ** Black members, ** Asian American members, ** Hispanic members.

data_aging_congress.csv contains information about the age of every member of the U.S. Senate and House from the 66th Congress (1919-1921) to the 118th Congress (2023-2025). Data is as of March 29, 2023, and is based on all voting members who served in either the Senate or House in each Congress. The data excludes delegates or resident commissioners from non-states. Any member who served in both chambers in the same Congress was assigned to the chamber in which they cast more votes. We began with the 66th Congress because it was the first Congress in which all senators had been directly elected, rather than elected by state legislatures, following the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913.

This data set matches district demographic information to a member of Congress's legislative actions from 1972 through 2013. The unit of analysis is individual members of Congress. For each member of Congress there is data on: personal characteristics for age, gender, race, ideology, etc. district information for income, education, employment, etc. legislative information for number of bills introduced, number enacted into law, etc. committee information

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the population of Congress by race. It includes the population of Congress across racial categories (excluding ethnicity) as identified by the Census Bureau. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population distribution of Congress across relevant racial categories.

Key observations

The percent distribution of Congress population by race (across all racial categories recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau): 97.17% are white and 2.83% are multiracial.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2018-2022 5-Year Estimates.

Racial categories include:

• White
• Black or African American
• American Indian and Alaska Native
• Asian
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
• Some other race
• Two or more races (multiracial)

Variables / Data Columns

• Race: This column displays the racial categories (excluding ethnicity) for the Congress
• Population: The population of the racial category (excluding ethnicity) in the Congress is shown in this column.
• % of Total Population: This column displays the percentage distribution of each race as a proportion of Congress total population. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Congress Population by Race & Ethnicity. You can refer the same here

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the Congress population distribution across 18 age groups. It lists the population in each age group along with the percentage population relative of the total population for Congress. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population distribution of Congress by age. For example, using this dataset, we can identify the largest age group in Congress.

Key observations

The largest age group in Congress, OH was for the group of age 0-4 years with a population of 35 (14.58%), according to the 2021 American Community Survey. At the same time, the smallest age group in Congress, OH was the 75-79 years with a population of 0 (0.00%). Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2017-2021 5-Year Estimates.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2017-2021 5-Year Estimates.

Age groups:

• Under 5 years
• 5 to 9 years
• 10 to 14 years
• 15 to 19 years
• 20 to 24 years
• 25 to 29 years
• 30 to 34 years
• 35 to 39 years
• 40 to 44 years
• 45 to 49 years
• 50 to 54 years
• 55 to 59 years
• 60 to 64 years
• 65 to 69 years
• 70 to 74 years
• 75 to 79 years
• 80 to 84 years
• 85 years and over

Variables / Data Columns

• Age Group: This column displays the age group in consideration
• Population: The population for the specific age group in the Congress is shown in this column.
• % of Total Population: This column displays the population of each age group as a proportion of Congress total population. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Congress Population by Age. You can refer the same here

US Congress Legislators Historical Data

A Detailed Dataset on Past and Present US Legislators' Profiles and Terms

By GovTrack [source]

About this dataset

This dataset provides comprehensive information on current and historical US legislators and their terms. The data includes diverse details, such as biographical data - names, gender, religion - along with IDs from multiple systems like Bioguide ID, FEC ID, GovTrack ID along with an official full name according to the House or Senate. It also captures alternate names used officially by legislators if they undergo a legal name change.

Moreover, the dataset also contains legislator identifiers from other websites such as OpenSecrets.org (an alphanumeric ID), VoteSmart.org (numeric stored as integer), VoteView.com (numeric stored as integer), C-SPAN's video website(numeric stored as integer), Wikipedia page names (alphanumeric), Ballotpedia page names(alphanumeric) and maplight.org(numeric).

Regarding the terms of each election held for legislators, key information found in this package includes state inclination in two-letter USPS abbreviation format alongside district numbers for representatives' service areas. For senators' specifics - there are inputs about their election class(1 2 or 3). Additionally captured are details around leadership roles – titles within parties plus dates of service.

Also included is rich contextual tell-tale about a legislator's political associations – party affiliations at both start & end dates indicating any switches during legislative term tenures.

The dataset extends itself beyond just being an academic resource; it helps build intuitive connections via RSS feeds URLs while offering details around their Washington DC office contact points – address suitably detailed room-wise plus phone/fax numbers alongside web URLs besides standalone contact page pointers.

Lastly but uniquely marks out official social media presence which includes Twitter handles/IDs & Facebook usernames/IDs further improving handle-based access for tools driven by API communication suggesting its utility not confined to structured academic research alone but extending to unstructured data handling digital companies specializing in sentiment analysis over multiple platforms/sources offering end-to-end integration or maybe be it organizations cross vérifying objective details over federal election claims by mapping FEC IDs to social media campaigns.

The dataset serves a wide array of researchers, policy analysts, political theorists, and technology centric analytics businesses. Conversely it can also help the curious public in learning about historical & current political landscapes in the US while checking their representatives' official web presence thereby fostering community engagement not just around elections but also during legislative tenures

How to use the dataset

This comprehensive dataset contains information on current and historical US Legislators and their terms. It can be used in a multitude of ways, such as academic research, journalism, policy making or for general interest. Here's a guide on how you can use this data:

Broad Overview:

Firstly, it's helpful to examine the broad layout of the data by taking an overall look at all files in the set: legislators-current.csv, legislators-historical.csv, legislators-current-terms.csv and legislators-historical-terms.csv.

The 'current' and 'historical' datasets pertain to sitting members of congress or those from past terms respectively.

The legislator files contain biographical information such as names (including possible name changes), gender and religion of each member whereas the term files hold details about their political careers including term type (senate or representative), state represented, district if relevant along with party affiliation.

Biographical Research:

You could use this data to create biographies for every legislator by collating personal information from first\_name, middle\_name, last\_name, suffix\_name, gender (gender_bio), birth date (birthday_bio) along with other identifying fields such as wikipedia_id and ballotpedia_id.

For instance - if you wanted to understand representation across genders over time, leverage the field gender_bio.

Political Trends Analysis:

Each legislator's movements through political roles over time is documented meticulously in these datasets. By filtering on specific IDs (like Thomas ID) you can get a chronological overview of their progression. Use this feature to understand shifting political trends within states or districts.

Through cross-referencing this dataset with...

This dataset was collected as an attempt to study trends of latino representation in the U.S. Senate by including participants from a renown fellowship and internship program hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI). More specifically, the data was created by collecting the statistic results from "DIVERSITY AMONG U.S. SENATE DEMOCRATIC STAFF" survey series 2017-2020. Followed by creating a binary variable if a CHCI participant was placed in the recorded offices or committees. Not all CHCI participants are accounted for in this dataset due to no diversity data avaliable for the U.S. House of Representatives. CHCI Intern Participants from Summer-Fall 2020 are not included due to placement information unavailable. Term codes are used for internship programs due to the programs veing organized by Fall(F) Spring (SP) and Summer (S). Percent_White is calculated as X =1 - Percent_Non-White. Any mistakes are my own, CHCI had no formal involvement in the data collection process.

After US elections, news stories frequently highlight how the United States Congress has a higher proportion of women and is more racially and ethnically diverse than at any point in history. While some literature suggests that this coverage may diminish legitimacy and support for democratic norms, other research suggests that as descriptive representation increases, citizens – including white people and men – have more trust in their institutions and perceive them to be more legitimate. However, little is known about the effect of this type of news coverage on citizens’ attitudes toward Congress and democracy as a whole. Given these competing expectations, we conduct a series of experiments to determine how portrayals of a diverse Congress affect its perceived legitimacy and support for democratic norms related to Congress’s power. We hypothesize that as Congress diversifies faster than the executive branch, the motivation to protect traditional hierarchies will undermine both the perceived legitimacy of Congress and the commitment to democratic restraints on Presidential power among white people and men. Our results are mixed. Based on two survey experiments with nationally representative samples, we find that Democrats perceive Congress as having more institutional legitimacy when informed of its diversity while Republicans show no difference in their legitimacy perceptions when compared to control conditions. Furthermore, we find no evidence that information about Congress’s diversity decreases support for democratic norms.

The most recent polling data from February 2025 puts the approval rating of the United States Congress at 29 percent, reflecting a significant increase from January. The approval rating remained low throughout the 118th Congress cycle, which began in January 2025. Congressional approval Congressional approval, particularly over the past few years, has not been high. Americans tend to see Congress as a group of ineffectual politicians who are out of touch with their constituents. The 118th Congress began in 2023 with a rocky start. The Democratic Party maintains control of the Senate, but Republicans took back control of the House of Representatives after the 2022 midterm elections. The House caught media attention from its first days with a contentious fight for the position of Speaker of the House. Representative Kevin McCarthy was eventually sworn in as Speaker after a historic fifteen rounds of voting. Despite the current Congress having a historic share of women and being the most diverse Congress in American history, very little has been done to improve the opinion of Americans regarding its central lawmaking body. Ye of little faith However, Americans tend not to have much confidence in many of the institutions in the United States. Additionally, public confidence in the ability of the Republican and Democratic parties to work together has decreased drastically between 2008 and 2022, with nearly 60 percent of Americans having no confidence the parties can govern in a bipartisan way.

This dataset tracks annual diversity score from 2003 to 2023 for Congress Elementary School vs. Arizona and Congress Elementary District (4479)

The U.S. Congress has become increasingly diverse over the years, though remains predominantly Protestant and Catholic. In 2023, **** percent of Congress identified as Protestant, and *** percent of Congress identified as Muslim.

This dataset tracks annual diversity score from 1991 to 2023 for Congress School vs. Michigan and Sturgis Public Schools

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the data for the Congress, OH population pyramid, which represents the Congress population distribution across age and gender, using estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-Year estimates. It lists the male and female population for each age group, along with the total population for those age groups. Higher numbers at the bottom of the table suggest population growth, whereas higher numbers at the top indicate declining birth rates. Furthermore, the dataset can be utilized to understand the youth dependency ratio, old-age dependency ratio, total dependency ratio, and potential support ratio.

Key observations

• Youth dependency ratio, which is the number of children aged 0-14 per 100 persons aged 15-64, for Congress, OH, is 67.4.
• Old-age dependency ratio, which is the number of persons aged 65 or over per 100 persons aged 15-64, for Congress, OH, is 18.6.
• Total dependency ratio for Congress, OH is 86.0.
• Potential support ratio, which is the number of youth (working age population) per elderly, for Congress, OH is 5.4.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2017-2021 5-Year Estimates.

Age groups:

• Under 5 years
• 5 to 9 years
• 10 to 14 years
• 15 to 19 years
• 20 to 24 years
• 25 to 29 years
• 30 to 34 years
• 35 to 39 years
• 40 to 44 years
• 45 to 49 years
• 50 to 54 years
• 55 to 59 years
• 60 to 64 years
• 65 to 69 years
• 70 to 74 years
• 75 to 79 years
• 80 to 84 years
• 85 years and over

Variables / Data Columns

• Age Group: This column displays the age group for the Congress population analysis. Total expected values are 18 and are define above in the age groups section.
• Population (Male): The male population in the Congress for the selected age group is shown in the following column.
• Population (Female): The female population in the Congress for the selected age group is shown in the following column.
• Total Population: The total population of the Congress for the selected age group is shown in the following column.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Congress Population by Age. You can refer the same here

The Congressional District Summary File (118th Congress) (CD118) contains the data compiled from the questions asked of all people and about every housing unit in the 2020 Census. This product retabulates selected summary levels from the Demographic and Housing Characteristics File (DHC) for the 118th Congress and 2022 state legislative districts. Population items include age, sex, race, Hispanic or Latino origin, household type, family type, relationship to householder, group quarters population, housing occupancy and housing tenure (whether a housing unit is owner-occupied or renter-occupied).

This dataverse contains the data and supporting documents for the CCES 2014 University of Iowa project. This project was supporting by the National Science Foundation, Grant Number SES-1430505

This dataset tracks annual diversity score from 1991 to 2023 for Congress Community Middle School vs. Florida and Palm Beach School District

This dataset tracks annual diversity score from 1999 to 2023 for Congress Middle School vs. Missouri and Park Hill School District

Comprehensive demographic dataset for South Congress, Austin, TX, US including population statistics, household income, housing units, education levels, employment data, and transportation with year-over-year changes.

Although the benefits of increasing descriptive diversity in Congress are well-explored, less attention has been paid to the positive impacts of increasing descriptive diversity in elections. Employing a comprehensive collection of campaign platform text from nearly 5,000 campaign websites, we find that Democratic male and white candidates are significantly more likely to take up women's and Black-associated issues when a candidate who possesses that identity runs in their same-party primary election. Extending our analysis to military veterans, we find that Republicans are more likely to discuss veterans' issues when there is a military veteran in their primary; conversely, Democrats are not any more likely to discuss these issues when they run against a veteran. Looking to candidate position taking in the general election, our findings suggest that simply the presence of candidates from underrepresented populations in congressional races is important to broadening substantive representation in the legislative arena.

On January 21, 2011, FHFA established its Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) consistent with Section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act). OMWI is responsible for leading the Agency’s efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

FHFA's OMWI Annual Report to Congress describes how the Agency increases diversity and ensures inclusion throughout the FHFA workforce and in our business activities, including procurement by continuing existing programs that have been effective, as well as developing and implementing new strategies and initiatives to support a diverse workforce and maintain an inclusive organizational culture. The Report also summarizes FHFA's oversight of the diversity and inclusion activities of its regulated entities – this includes Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks, and the Office of Finance, as required under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.