Slavery’s Legacy Can Be Seen in the Wealth of U.S. Representatives
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In a first-of-its-kind analysis, researchers revealed that members of the United States Congress whose ancestors owned slaves are far wealthier than members without slaveholding ancestors. The study, published last week to the journal PLoS ONE, is yet another reminder that the legacy of America’s original sin still haunts us today.
Neil K.R. Sehgal, a second year Computer Science PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on using computational techniques to elucidate issues of bias and health equity, carried out the research with his father, Dr. Ashwini Sehgal, a bioethics professor at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine.
Together, the duo calculated the net worth of all members of Congress as of April 15, 2021 using publicly-available financial declarations. Members’ median net worth tallied at $1.28 million.
Both combined this net worth data with the findings of a rigorous effort to uncover the slaveholder ancestry of prominent American politicians. In 2023, with the help of genealogy researchers at Brigham Young University, Reuters journalists pored through the family histories of more than 600 of the country’s leading officeholders, revealing the number of slaves their ancestors owned since 1776. In total, 28 senators and 72 representatives had historical family members who owned other human beings.