The median net worth of a U.S. family is $215,900, and the average (mean) is $1,241,500. Both figures come from the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), fielded in 2025 and released on October 9, 2026, with all amounts in 2025 dollars. By age, the median runs from $33,000 for families headed by someone under 35 to $504,900 for families headed by someone 75 or older. The mean runs far higher at every age — from $135,400 under 35 to $1,962,200 at 75 and older — because a small number of very wealthy families pulls the average up. If you compare yourself to one number, compare yourself to the median for your age group, not the average.
Median and mean net worth by age
The table below is the Federal Reserve’s own published table — Table 2 of its bulletin Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025. Families are grouped by the age of the family’s reference person (in a couple, broadly the main earner), and the survey interviewed 4,367 families in 2025.
| Age of reference person | Median net worth | Mean (average) net worth | Change in median since 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | $33,000 | $135,400 | −23% |
| 35–44 | $155,600 | $681,900 | +5% |
| 45–54 | $253,700 | $1,244,500 | −6% |
| 55–64 | $411,900 | $1,878,000 | +3% |
| 65–74 | $431,300 | $1,897,600 | −4% |
| 75 and older | $504,900 | $1,962,200 | +37% |
| All families | $215,900 | $1,241,500 | +2% |
Source: Federal Reserve, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025, Table 2, Survey of Consumer Finances 2025 (released October 9, 2026). Figures in 2025 dollars; the change column is inflation-adjusted, so it is a real change, not just rising prices.
Two things in this table surprise most readers. First, the 75-and-older group now has the highest median of any age group — $504,900, up 37% in real terms since 2022 — overtaking the 65–74 group, whose median actually fell slightly. Second, the youngest group went backwards: the under-35 median fell 23% in real terms, from $42,700 in the 2022 survey (restated in 2025 dollars) to $33,000. The survey itself does not say why any group moved; it is a snapshot of what families owned and owed at interview, not an explanation of the move.
Why the median is the honest headline
The mean and the median answer different questions, and for wealth the difference is enormous.
The mean adds up every family’s net worth and divides by the number of families. It treats a billionaire’s fortune and a renter’s savings account as equal votes in the total — except the billionaire’s vote is thousands of times larger. Across all families, the mean of $1,241,500 is about 5.8 times the median of $215,900. Almost nobody is “average” in that sense: well over half of families have less than the mean, because the mean is dragged upward by the top few percent.
The median is the middle family: half of families have more, half have less. It is barely moved by fortunes at the very top, which is why it describes a typical family’s position far better. When a headline says “average net worth is $1.24 million,” it is quoting the mean — a true number that describes almost no actual family.
The skew exists inside every age band, not just overall. Under 35, the mean ($135,400) is about 4.1 times the median ($33,000). At 45–54, the mean ($1,244,500) is about 4.9 times the median ($253,700). The ratio narrows a little in the oldest group — about 3.9 times at 75 and older — but it never comes close to 1. That is the single most important fact about American wealth in this survey: at every age, the typical family holds far less than the average suggests.
There is a second, quieter reason to use the median: the mean by age is the figure most likely to be quoted from the old survey. Pages still running the 2022 SCF report a mean of $1,063,700 and a median of $192,900. Those were correct for 2022. They are not the current survey, and any page that does not state its survey year next to the table should be read with that in mind.
Why net worth climbs with age
The pattern in the table — a low median under 35, a steep climb through the working years, a peak late in life — is what a lifetime of earning, saving and borrowing looks like in cross-section. Four forces drive it:
- Time to save. A 30-year-old has had perhaps a decade of earnings; a 60-year-old has had four. Retirement accounts in particular are mostly a function of years of contributions plus compounding, so their balances are small early and large late almost by definition.
- Home equity. For the typical family the home is the largest asset. Early in a mortgage, most of the home’s value is offset by the loan; late in the mortgage, the loan is small or gone and the equity is the family’s biggest single store of wealth. This is also why the survey counts the home at its full current value and the mortgage as a debt — the method is set out in how net worth is calculated.
- Debt peaks early and fades. Student loans and new mortgages are concentrated in the younger bands. By the 65–74 band, most mortgages are paid down or paid off, so the subtraction side of the balance sheet shrinks just as the asset side peaks.
- Earnings rise, then stop mattering. Income typically rises into a person’s 50s, which funds faster saving in the 45–64 bands. After retirement, net worth depends less on new saving and more on how slowly the accumulated stock is drawn down — one reason the oldest band can keep a high median even with no wages coming in.
Age is also a proxy for things the table does not show: homeowners are older than renters on average, couples are counted as one family, and a family’s reference person being 70 does not mean a 70-year-old living alone. The bands describe families, not individuals, and they describe everyone in the band at once — and the spread within a band is wide: in every band, the top quarter of families holds several times the median.
How these figures are produced — and their limits
The Survey of Consumer Finances is the Federal Reserve’s triennial survey of U.S. family balance sheets — what families own, what they owe, and their income and demographics. The SCF programme page publishes the bulletin, the historic tables and the full public dataset. Three features of its methodology matter for reading the numbers honestly:
- It oversamples the wealthy on purpose. Wealth is so concentrated that a purely random sample would miss the top almost entirely, so the SCF deliberately interviews extra high-wealth families and then weights the results back to represent the population. That is why it is the standard source for U.S. wealth — and also why its mean is so sensitive to the top.
- It measures families (primary economic units), not people. A couple counts once, with combined assets and debts. Comparing your personal savings account to a family median understates a couple and overstates a single person; compare like with like.
- It is a snapshot in 2025 dollars. Interviews took place in 2025 (a minority in early 2026). Stock and house prices have moved since, so the figures are a benchmark, not a live scoreboard. The net worth definition also excludes the capitalised value of defined-benefit pensions and future Social Security — a family with a generous pension is better off than its SCF-style net worth suggests.
One more discrepancy to expect: if you compute the same statistics from the Fed’s public dataset rather than reading the bulletin, you get slightly different numbers — a median of about $216,100 instead of $215,900, for example. The public file has a handful of observations removed for disclosure protection and pools the survey’s imputations differently. The differences are a few hundred dollars; the bulletin figures above are the Fed’s published headline values, and they are the ones used throughout this site.
Why the Census Bureau’s figures look different
Sooner or later you will meet a second set of official numbers that does not match this table. The Census Bureau’s Wealth of Households: 2024, built from its 2025 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and published in July 2026, puts median household wealth at $204,900 — close to the Fed’s median, but not the same number — and its age pattern peaks earlier: $38,270 for householders under 35, $170,500 at 35–44, $251,300 at 45–54, $311,700 at 55–64, a high of $426,700 at 70–74, then $336,000 at 75 and older.
Neither survey is wrong. They measure slightly different things. The Census counts households by the age of the householder (the person who owns or rents the home); the Fed counts families — primary economic units — by the age of the reference person. The Census figures are in 2024 dollars, the Fed’s in 2025 dollars. And the two wealth measures do not cover identical ground: the Census measure leaves out pension-plan equity, for example. Small definitional gaps like that are quite enough to move a median by tens of thousands of dollars. Use one source consistently, and never splice a Census row into a Fed table.
What changed since the 2022 survey
Restated in 2025 dollars, the overall median rose just 2% between the 2022 and 2025 surveys (from $211,100 to $215,900), while the mean rose 7% (from about $1,163,900 to $1,241,500) — growth concentrated nearer the top. By age, the moves were uneven: the 75-and-older median jumped 37%, the 35–44 median rose 5% and the 55–64 median 3%, while the under-35 median fell 23%, the 45–54 median fell 6% and the 65–74 median fell 4%. After the unusually large wealth gains of the pandemic-era 2022 survey, the 2025 survey reads as a levelling-off for the typical family — and a setback for the youngest one.
How to use these numbers
Treat your age band’s median as a rough orientation, not a target or a verdict. If your net worth is near it, you are in the middle of families your age — no more, no less. If it is well below, the percentile table in net worth percentile by age will show you how far below, and the companion calculation guide walks through getting your own number right — including the common mistakes, like counting income as wealth or valuing a home at what you paid for it. And remember what the number is not: it is not a credit score, which measures borrowing behaviour rather than wealth — see what is a good credit score for that separate scale.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average net worth in the U.S.? The mean net worth is $1,241,500 and the median is $215,900, per the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances (released October 9, 2026, figures in 2025 dollars). The median is the better picture of a typical family, because the mean is pulled up by the wealthiest few percent.
What is the median net worth by age? Under 35: $33,000. 35–44: $155,600. 45–54: $253,700. 55–64: $411,900. 65–74: $431,300. 75 and older: $504,900 (Federal Reserve, SCF 2025, Table 2, 2025 dollars).
Why did the under-35 median fall? In the published table it fell 23% in real terms between the 2022 and 2025 surveys. The bulletin reports the change; it does not attribute a single cause, and this article does not invent one. Younger families hold the least home equity and the most student and early-mortgage debt, so their net worth is the most sensitive to asset prices and debt balances at the moment of interview.
What is the average net worth at 30, 40 or 50? The Fed does not publish single ages — only the six bands in the table. A 30-year-old falls in the under-35 band (median $33,000, mean $135,400), a 40-year-old in the 35–44 band ($155,600 / $681,900) and a 50-year-old in the 45–54 band ($253,700 / $1,244,500). Finer five-year splits do exist on calculator sites, but those are analysts’ own calculations from the Fed’s public data, not figures the Fed publishes — which is why they differ slightly from site to site.
What is a good net worth by age? There is no official “good” figure, and the survey cannot give you one — it reports where people are, not where they should be. The salary-multiple rules you will see elsewhere (roughly one year’s salary saved by 30, three times by 40, and so on) are targets promoted by financial firms, not measurements. The honest use of this table is narrower: at or above your band’s median, you are ahead of at least half the families your age. Whether that is enough depends on your own plans, debts and retirement date — things no national table knows about you.
Is $1 million a typical net worth? No. No age band’s median reaches $1 million — the highest is $504,900 at 75 and older. A $1 million net worth puts a family well above the median at every age; roughly where it lands by percentile is covered in net worth percentile by age.
This article is general information, not personal financial advice. Figures are from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances 2025 (fielded 2025, released October 9, 2026), in 2025 dollars, except the Census Bureau comparison section, which uses the Census Bureau’s Wealth of Households: 2024 (2025 SIPP, July 2026) in 2024 dollars. Checked November 2026. The next SCF is due in 2028, with results expected in 2029.