Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s annual congressional financial disclosure for calendar year 2025 shows total reportable assets well under $100,000. filed Aug. 6, 2026 and amended Aug. 7, 2026 The filing offers a rare, itemized look at a working-age professional’s balance sheet and serves as a useful teaching case for anyone asking: am I on track for retirement?
The disclosure lists four accounts an Allied Bank savings account in the $15,001 to $50,000 band, a Charles Schwab checking account in the $1,001 to $15,000 band, a Charles Schwab brokerage account in the $1 to $1,000 band, and a National Hispanic Institute 401(k) in the $1,001 to $15,000 band and one liability federal student loan debt of $15,001 to $50,000. No individual stocks, no broader portfolio.
Congressional disclosures report ranges, not exact figures. Total reportable assets fall between $17,004 and $81,000 Once the student loan is factored in, the true figure sits somewhere between roughly negative $33,000 and positive $66,000. Wherever the real number lands, it is below $100,000.
Ocasio-Cortez has held her House seat since January 2019 and earned roughly $1.22 million in congressional salary over that span. Her current pay is $174,000, the rank-and-file House salary, frozen since 2009.
Fidelity’s Ladder Every Saver Should Know
Fidelity publishes an age-based yardstick for retirement savings, expressed as multiples of current income: 1x salary by age 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60, and 10x by 67. The assumptions are straightforward: a 15% savings rate, retirement at 67, and an income replacement target of 45% after Social Security. It adjusts to whatever a person earns.
Applied to a $174,000 salary, the 3x-by-40 milestone works out to $522,000. Ocasio-Cortez was born Oct. 13, 1989, is currently 36, and turns 40 on Oct. 13, 2029, so she has roughly three years before that benchmark year arrives.
Where Her Age Peers Actually Stand
Fidelity’s Q3 2025 retirement analysis, covering 26,000 corporate defined contribution plans and 24.8 million participants as of Sept. 30, 2025, shows an average 401(k) balance of $80,700 for Millennials, $73,200 for ages 35 to 39, and $109,100 for ages 40 to 44.
Vanguard’s How America Saves 2025 report (Figure 54, using 2024 data) puts the median retirement account balance for ages 35 to 44 at $39,958, with an average of $103,552. The median is more representative than the average, since large balances skew upward. Broader data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (2022 data, released October 2023) shows Americans aged 35 to 44 have a median net worth of $135,300 and an average of $548,070.
Her disclosed 401(k) range sits below the Vanguard median and both Fidelity averages. Her net worth range sits below the Fed’s 2022 median for her age bracket.
How That Compares to Her Colleagues
Congress makes an imperfect reference group for most readers, though the contrast is instructive. Quiver Quantitative’s disclosure tracker ranks Ocasio-Cortez 475th of 535 members by net worth, in the bottom 11% of the institution. A NOTUS analysis cited by Spotlight PA in March 2026 found at least 73 of the 100 sitting U.S. senators have a net worth exceeding $1 million. For historical scale, a Ballotpedia compilation last comprehensively updated in 2012 pegged the congressional average near $7.9 million, with 43% of members being millionaires.
How to Apply the Yardstick to Your Own Numbers
The point of a multiple-of-salary benchmark is simplicity. Take your current gross salary, multiply it by the factor for your next age milestone (1x at 30, 3x at 40, 6x at 50, 8x at 60, 10x at 67), and compare that target to your combined 401(k), IRA, and workplace retirement account balances. If you are behind, the two levers that move the number most are your savings rate and your time horizon. Fidelity’s 15% combined contribution rate is the assumption baked into the ladder, and a full employer match is the cheapest way to get there.
The most common mistake is treating the benchmark as pass/fail. It is a checkpoint along the way. A 36-year-old with three years until the next milestone has time to close a gap; a 55-year-old with the same gap faces a different problem. Run the number carefully, then decide which lever (contribution rate, expenses, or working years) you can actually move.
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