The Average US Representative Is 58, the Average Senator 65, and the Trend Runs Upward
Congressional records show the lowest median ages in both chambers were recorded in the early 1980s, at 48 in the House and 52 in the Senate.
The median age of Congress members has ticked upward over time since then, and Pew Research Center analysis puts the average age at the start of the current Congress at 58 for a House member and 65 for a senator.
Set beside those figures, one demographic parallel stands out: the profile of people who actually vote tends to skew older, much like the elected officials themselves.
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The striking statistic is not any single member's age but the pipeline behind them. Among comparable democracies, the US has one of the lowest proportions of lawmakers under 45, which is what a gerontocracy looks like when you measure it instead of arguing about it.
Concern about the age and health of some politicians has run through both Republican and Democratic circles and revived talk of age limits or health checks. But if the electorate itself skews older, it is not obviously the constituency that will demand them.