American politicians are the oldest in the rich world

J.D. VANCE, the winner of Donald Trump’s Apprentice-style competition for a running-mate, is an outlier in many ways. He is one of the least experienced vice-presidential picks in American history. Recent surveys have found that roughly half of all respondents did not know him. And, aged 39, he is younger than roughly 90% of America’s lawmakers in Congress.

His nomination injects some youth into a presidential cycle that had, at least until an assassination attempt on July 13th, been dominated by questions of age. Both critics and allies of Joe Biden, the 81-year-old president, have raised serious doubts about his aptitude for office. On July 17th he tested positive for covid-19, raising further concerns about his health. Mr Trump, meanwhile, is just four years his junior. But age-related concerns in American politics run deeper than Messrs Biden and Trump. Data compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a Swiss-based organisation, show that America has the oldest legislators in the rich world. The average age of those who sit in the House of Representatives and the Senate is 59, two decades older than Mr Vance and almost a decade older than the OECD average for elected lawmakers. Mr Biden is 22 years older than the average head of government in the same group.