Demographic Dynamics of the Wealth Gap in Congress

Lower-income citizens in the United States have distinct partisan and policy preferences from higher-income citizens. Lower-income citizens, however, have been numerically underrepresented in policymaking institutions throughout most of American history. This numerical underrepresentation of the working class is potentially problematic because members of Congress are consistently more responsive toward upper income constituents. This bias toward upper income constituents may be a result of the fact that members themselves are disproportionately wealthy. This paper seeks to determine what demographic relationships actually exist on the basis of legislator wealth. To ascertain this, we utilize data from Roll Call, which each year since 1990 has reviewed the financial disclosures of all 535 senators and representatives to determine the 50 richest members of Congress. For the first time, the report derived from forms covering 2014 went a step further by publishing a ranking of every single lawmaker by their minimum net worth. This analysis finds that there is not a straightforward relationship with legislator wealth and partisanship. There is, however, a strong relationships with race and legislative wealth. The wealthiest members of Congress tend to be disproportionately white Democrats and the least wealthy members non-whites. Along with being more likely to be white relatively wealthy members of Congress also tend to represent wealthier constituencies.