In the past week, our data on lawmakers’ personal finances has received a lot of attention. Looking beyond the headlines, and after all the jokes, people began to ask us questions about what was reported in the data and how the numbers were calculated. For a more thorough explanation we encourage you to read the House and Senate filing instructions, and our own methodology page. But here are answers to some of the questions we are asked most frequently:

Do members of Congress need to disclose their salaries?

Members of Congress don’t have to report their congressional salaries as income. They also don’t report military pay (Reserves or National Guard), federal retirement benefits or payments from Social Security, disability insurance, alimony or child support. And they’re not required to report how much their spouse brings in. Instead, members must report the name of the spouse’s employer and a note that his or her annual income was “greater than $1,000.” Some members choose to ignore these exceptions. Notably, since we began collecting this data in 2004, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has disclosed his wife’s full salary, which she earned working for the City University of New York. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also discloses his wife’s salary as well as the couple’s Social Security benefits.

Why can’t you tell us exactly how much a filer is worth?

Monetary values of assets and liabilities are disclosed in ranges rather than as exact amounts. These ranges are fairly narrow for the smaller values but become very broad for larger values. For example, a small value range is $15,000-$50,000, while a large value range is $5 million-$25 million. For this reason, we provide on our site both a minimum possible net worth and a maximum possible net worth for each filer. We determine each individual’s average wealth by totaling all his or her listed assets at their maximum and again at their minimum values, and subtracting from them any reported liabilities, again at their maximum and minimum possible values. From the resulting numbers, we determine the average.

Why did Rep. Michael McCaul’s (R-Texas) net worth drop so drastically in one year?

For as long as we’ve been collecting personal financial data, since 2004, senators have been allowed to disclose the assets of wealthy spouses by listing them simply as being “over $1,000,000.” Recently, the House began using the same system. To understand how this range can drastically underestimate a filer’s wealth, see McCaul’s profile. In the most recent reports, many of McCaul’s wife’s assets that had in the previous year been listed as having a value of $1 million-$5 million, or even $5 million-$25 million, have now been put in the catch-all “over $1,000,000” category.

Do filers ever provide an exact value of their assets?

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When a filer has provided an exact amount rather than a range, we’ve used that amount, instead of the range, in calculating the filer’s net worth. Though it’s unlikely we’ll see an entire report with exact amounts, even some exact values allow us to provide a much closer estimate of a filer’s net worth by limiting the number of asset and liability ranges to account for in our calculation. For an example of how disclosing exact figures makes the possible range of net worth much smaller, see Rep. Jim Renacci‘s (R-Ohio) profile.

Do filers disclose the value of their homes?

Filers are not required to disclose the value of their personal residence or vacation homes unless the property generates income, usually through rent. As of 2011, however, filers are required to disclose mortgages on any residence. We do not factor a mortgage into net worth calculations unless the value of the corresponding property is also listed. For an example of how the value of a residence can change a filer’s net worth, see Sen. Mitch McConnell‘s (R-Ky.) profile. In 2011, McConnell listed the value of a property he was renting out, but in 2012 he no longer received income on the property so it wasn’t listed in his assets. His net worth dropped significantly due in large part to this exception.

What other information can I find in the personal financial disclosures?

Filers also disclose information about memberships they held on boards, gifts they received and trips they took at a sponsor’s expense. You can see any of these items, when they are reported, from a filer’s summary page.

Although our data on members of Congress tends to receive the most attention, we also have data on certain members of the executive branch as well as Supreme Court justices.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed looking through this data so far and that, as you have more questions, you’ll continue to ask!



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