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3 months ago

What it costs to renovate the White House

The White House has been under construction more often than you might think. Since the early 20th century, several large projects have reshaped parts of the building, from a 1927 roof renovation to the modernization of both wings decades later. How does the new ballroom addition compare? We burned the midnight oil to bring you data about major White House renovation costs over the past century.

In the past 100 years, three projects stand out for their scale and cost: the Truman-era reconstruction of the Executive Residence in the 1940s ($5.4 million, or $72 million in adjusted dollars), the modernization of the East and West Wings starting in 2008 ($376 million back then, $561 million now), and the current East Wing ballroom construction (estimated to be $200 to $400 million).
Both the project in the 1940s and the one in the 2000s were prompted by concerns about the White House’s aging infrastructure. After all, after 200 years, electrical, plumbing, and security systems need some TLC.
The proposed renovation would be built on the site of the former East Wing and would cover roughly 90,000 square feet. It would include, among other features, a 22,000-square-foot ballroom designed to seat about 1,000 guests.
Federal dollars have paid for most major White House renovations. The planned ballroom is expected to rely on private donations — a historically uncommon approach for permanent structural changes.

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Ask an Analyst: Putting White House construction in context

As you might have guessed, researching nearly a century of changes to the commander in chief’s home was tricky. Luckily, Ask an Analyst is here to clue you in on how our analysts make sense of the data.

In this installment, Amber details her thorough research through presidential archives for scattershot records on federally and privately funded White House renovations. Her detective work turned up at least one potential ghost! Join the journey

Which states have the most people over 65?

America is getting older. The national population over the age of 65 has more than doubled since 1980, driven largely by the aging of the baby boomer generation: people born between 1946 and 1964. Here’s where older Americans make up the largest share of the population.

In 2024, Maine had the highest percentage of state residents ages 65 and older (23.5%), followed by Vermont (22.9%), West Virginia (21.9%), and Florida (21.8%).
Over the last decade, elderly populations in 49 states grew by at least 20%. They particularly grew in Alaska (up 56.3%) and Idaho (51.1%). Meanwhile, West Virginia had the smallest growth (17.5%).
This population growth is due, in part, to people living longer: by 2023, death rates among US adults 65 and older were the lowest since 1999. (There was, however, one exception: the rise in deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.)

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