The 118th Congress has the largest proportion of members in American history who identify as being a race or ethnicity other than white. As of 3 January, 2023, 133 members of Congress—or one-fourth of the 534 voting members—identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, American Indian, or Alaska Native.
This is backed up by a recent Pew Research Center analysis that used data from the Congressional Research Service. The results are in line with earlier studies that showed how racially and ethnically diverse Congress is becoming. The diversity record of the previous Congress was surpassed by each of the last seven Congresses.
In the current (118th) Congress, there are 60 Black members, 54 Hispanic members, 18 Asian American members, and 5 American Indian or Alaska Native members.
*Click on the slabs for data*
Comparatively, the 107th Congress, which was inaugurated in 2001, had 36 members who identified as Black, 19 Hispanic, seven Asian Americans, and just one American Indian or Alaska Native.
Currently, Democrats make up 80 per cent of the racial and ethnic minority members of Congress. According to experts, the party split is comparable to the last Congress, in which MPs who identified as being from racial and ethnic minorities were more likely to be Democrats (83 per cent), as opposed to Republicans (17 per cent).
The current Congress, however, has more freshmen legislators who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian Americans, American Indians, or Alaska Native than the previous Congress did.
*NOTE: In the Chart, the four members who have more than one racial or ethnic identity for the above groups are counted only once, as multiracial. This data does not include non-voting delegates or commissioners*
In the 118th Congress, women held a record 28 per cent of all seats, according to further statistics from the Center.
Researchers point out that white legislators are overrepresented relative to the US population, despite the fact that the newest Congress has more racial and ethnic diversity.
Compared to 59 per cent of the overall population, 75 per cent of parliamentarians identify as white, according to the Census data.
Additionally, the representation difference is comparable to that observed 40 years ago, when 94 per cent of Congress was made up of white people and 80 per cent of the country’s population identified as white.
While certain racial and ethnic groups continue to have poor representation, others have proportionate representation to their percentage of the US population. As per Pew research, 13 per cent of House members identify as Black, which is a figure that is similar to the US population overall.
While 19 per cent of Americans identify as Hispanic, only 11 per cent of House members do, and just four per cent of House members identify as Asian American, compared to six per cent of the population.
