What the 1950 Census says about the Bidens of Scranton, Pa.
After decades of waiting, the U.S. Census Bureau has finally released a treasure trove of information for those anxious to dig into their family history — including the first family.
After decades of waiting, the U.S. Census Bureau has finally released a treasure trove of information for those anxious to dig into their family history — or for that matter, the president’s.
On Friday, the National Archives and Records Administration unveiled population records from the 1950 Census following a mandatory 72-year hold. The records provide details on America’s 151 million residents in that year, made available online for anyone to get a better picture of the U.S. just after World War II.
Although the U.S. census gives us reams of information about the nation — such as where people live, their age, sex, racial and ethnic makeup, and much more — that data is only available in general terms, and doesn’t detail who’s neighbors with whom or how much money the family up the block makes.
At least, not for a while.
» READ MORE: How to explore data from the 1950 census (and why you should)
According to federal law, the full contents of a census, including names, ages, and addresses, are kept secret for more than seven decades. On Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau released the full contents of the census taken in 1950.
That was the first time a little boy named Joseph Biden Jr., 7, of Scranton, Pa., was counted in the great 10-year survey of the country.
The survey taken that year gives a tidy snapshot of the Biden family’s middle-class lifestyle. It shows that the now-president’s father, Joseph R. Biden Sr., who had completed high school but didn’t go to college, made $3,200 annually (about $37,670 in 2022 dollars) as an automotive inspector, or almost exactly equal to the median family income that year. Biden’s mother, Catherine Eugenia “Jean,” listed just as Catherine, was recorded as “keeping house,” and his younger siblings Valerie and James were listed as dependents. His youngest brother, Frank, was not yet born.
In contradiction to the decline of extended-family households that accelerated after WWII, the census document, called a “population schedule,” shows that the Bidens lived in a house owned by the current president’s maternal grandfather, A.J. Finnegan. He, not the senior Biden, was listed as the head of the household.
The president’s uncle, Frank Biden, also lived with the family.
Although Biden Sr. and his family moved from Scranton to Delaware in 1953, both he and his wife have roots in the city. The president’s paternal great-great-grandfather arrived in Scranton from Ireland in 1851. His maternal great-grandfather also ended up in Scranton after his father immigrated from Ireland in 1849.
Even after the move, Biden Jr. would spend summers with his maternal grandparents and continue to maintain deep ties with Scranton, returning periodically to cultivate lifelong friendships and political ties after he became a U.S. senator from Delaware in 1973.
As Biden told GQ in a 2010 interview: “You know, it’s still home.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated where Frank Biden, Joe Biden’s uncle, lived in Scranton. He lived with the Biden family in the same house as the future president.