How do congressional financial disclosure ranges work and why do they create wide estimates of net worth?

1. How the law and guidance create ranges, not exact numbers

The Ethics in Government Act and implementing regulations require annual public financial disclosure but do not demand exact dollar amounts for most assets and liabilities; instead they require filers to place holdings into “categories of value” (ranges) — a design explicitly described in House and Senate instructions and guidance documents ^{[1] [2] [5]}. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act added more frequent transaction reporting and some new disclosure lines (like mortgages), but it did not eliminate the use of ranges for asset values ^{[6] [2]}.

2. What the categories look like and why they’re blunt instruments

Disclosure forms list tiered brackets (for example, $1,001–$15,000, $15,001–$50,000, etc.), and some categories — notably a spouse’s top asset category — have no statutory upper bound, forcing reporters and analysts to contend with “over $1 million” or similar entries that carry enormous uncertainty ^{[1] [3]}. The forms also exempt or limit reporting on some items (personal residences not producing income, certain retirement accounts), which means disclosed ranges routinely omit material parts of household finances that would otherwise narrow any net‑worth calculation ^{[3] [7]}.

3. How watchdogs and databases turn ranges into numeric estimates

Organizations such as OpenSecrets aggregate the categorical disclosures into a potential range of total net worth by combining the minimum and maximum implied values of each bracket and then often publish an average “best guess”; when public ranges are open‑ended, they substitute proxy figures (OpenSecrets, for instance, assigns specific high values where the form gives only “over $1 million” or similar) to produce a usable—but necessarily approximate—estimate ^{[3] [8]}. Those method choices are transparent in methodology notes but create different estimates across outlets depending on the proxy values and assumptions used ^[3].

4. Why estimates become very wide in practice

Wide public estimates result from a combination of open upper ranges, excluded asset types, aggregated spousal or trust entries, and lack of transaction granularity for some holdings; one high‑value, open‑ended entry can stretch a member’s implied net‑worth range by orders of magnitude, making it impossible to state a precise figure from the public filing alone ^{[3] [1]}. The Government Accountability Office and other reviewers have flagged these weaknesses and recommended improvements to public reporting to reduce such uncertainty ^{[9] [10]}.

5. Competing imperatives and political pressures

Calls for reform — from watchdogs urging narrower brackets or tax‑form disclosures to congressional critics demanding greater enforcement — reflect a push for accuracy and public accountability, but advocates for the status quo argue that some range privacy is necessary to reduce administrative burden and protect family privacy; these opposing agendas shape both the law and the public debate over whether and how to tighten disclosure rules ^{[4] [1] [2]}.

6. Practical takeaway for consumers of disclosure‑based net‑worth claims

Any headline that declares a member of Congress “worth” a single dollar figure rests on methodological choices and proxy assumptions; the primary documents intentionally present ranges, and third‑party conversions are estimates with documented caveats — readers and reporters should look for methodology notes and guard against treating averages or midpoint guesses as definitive wealth valuations ^{[3] [8]}.