Biden will eclipse Reagan as the oldest president of the Washington Leadership Ages

Still, he is younger than many of the best jobs in Washington. Working well after the typical retirement age is one of the few points of bipartisan agreement in the country’s capital.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is the oldest member of the Senate at age 87, while Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is less than three months younger. Senate Republican Party leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is 78 years old.

Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska, the oldest person in the U.S. House and a member of Congress since the Nixon administration, is 87 years old. The three top Democratic leaders in his chamber are not far behind: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Speaker Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina has 80, while the leader of the majority the house, Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, has 81.

“It’s the largest retirement community in the world because you have great advantages and you can still do interesting things,” said Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican who served as governor and in both houses of Congress before deciding to run. to the re-election of the Senate in 2010.

“You get to the point where you’re 75 and what else are you going to do?” asked Mr. Gregg, who is now 73 years old. “Why go to a golf community when you can be president?”

Gregg said there is value in the experience as well. “It took at least ten years until I was able to compete with the staff, who had been there forever, with the budget,” he said.

Tom Harkin, a 73-year-old former Democratic senator from Iowa when he announced in January 2013 that he would not run for re-election the following year, agreed.

“The longer I stayed in Congress, the more I saw that longevity and age were many times more effective than youth and inexperience,” he said. “Get a thank you for the commitment and the long vision.”

The average age in the House went from 50.7 to 57.6 years between 1987 and 2019, while it went from 54.4 to 62.9 years during this period in the Senate, according to data from the Research Service of Congress.

The average age of top executives running companies in the S&P 500 was 58 according to a WSJ analysis conducted less than two years ago. According to the Society of Actuaries, the average retirement age for all Americans is 64.3 for men and 63 for women.

Mr. Biden’s incoming cabinet is expected to be slightly younger than the one that began with Trump in 2017, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 16 top administrative positions. The average age of those Biden has chosen to work with is 58.8, compared to the 62.4 of those who started with Trump.

Pete Buttigieg, 38, whom Biden has appointed as transport secretary, is the youngest in the incoming group, while Janet Yellen, 74, is her selection for secretary of the Treasury.

The tendency of the people of Washington — at least at the highest levels — to work well after the typical retirement age extends beyond the White House and Congress.

Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last year at the age of 87, allowing Trump to appoint a third Conservative to the high court. He chose Amy Coney Barrett, 48, to take the place.

Stephen Breyer, the oldest Supreme Court judge at 82, is under pressure to retire now that Democrats are willing to control both the White House and the Senate. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and is the second longest-serving member of the court.

Pressure groups also tend to work far beyond typical retirement. Richard Gephardt, 79, who served 28 years in the House and ran twice for the presidency, now leads a Washington government affairs group. Your business did not respond to any email search messages.

For some former members of Congress, Mr Gregg said there is a tendency to move under pressure because some of them “come from places they don’t want to return to” and because they can live “very well in Washington for a long time.” .

Both Mr. Harkin and Mr. Gregg said they were opposed to the terms of office for members of Congress. Gregg said it would result in a “staff-driven Congress” if only members were allowed to serve a few terms.

Both men also pointed to the partisan pattern of many congressional districts as a factor in the aging of Congress. “Once you’re there, if you’re decently on duty and take care of your constituents, you can be re-elected,” Harkin said.

In addition to overseeing his Harkin Institute at Drake University in Des Moines, Mr. Harkin has used his time out of politics to make several long sailing trips to the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. “I would never have been able to do that if I had stayed in the Senate,” he said.

Republican Chuck Hagel, who represented Nebraska in the Senate for 12 years and was secretary of defense during the Obama administration, said less civility in politics has also led to fewer young people wanting to run for office.

“Both sides now see the other side as the enemy,” he said. “This has inhibited a lot of good people from getting into politics.”

Write to John McCormick at [email protected]