The median US household had a net worth of $192,900 in the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. The average was $1,063,700. Both numbers are correct, and the distance between them is the most important thing on this page: the average is a figure most households sit far below.
If a headline average has ever made your own number feel small, the skew is the reason, not you. A small group of very wealthy households pulls the average up four to five times the median in every age band, while the median simply marks the middle. This study puts the two side by side for every band, explains the gap before interpreting anything, and shows how to use the benchmark without being judged by it. Every figure is a household figure in 2022 dollars from the Fed’s 2022 survey, the most recent wave, and each one says so.
Jump to your band: under 35, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, 55 to 64, 65 to 74, or 75 and older.
Key findings
- Among US households in the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the median net worth was $192,900 and the mean was $1,063,700, a gap of $870,800 and a ratio of about 5.5 to one.
- The average runs four to five times the median in every age band, from 3.9x at ages 45 to 54 to 4.8x at 75 and older, so comparing yourself to an average means comparing yourself to the wealthiest households’ effect on the math.
- The median peaks at $409,900 for ages 65 to 74, then eases to $335,600 at 75 and older as retirees spend savings down. The average peaks in the same band at $1,794,600.
- Real median net worth surged 37 percent from 2019 to 2022, the largest three-year jump in the modern survey, and the under-35 median nearly tripled from $13,900 to $39,000.
- Home equity is the largest US asset class: primary residences were worth $40.9 trillion in 2022, more than a quarter of all household assets, and excluding home equity drops the overall median to roughly $57,900.
- Negative net worth is normal early: the 10th percentile for under-35 households is roughly minus $13,060 (a DQYDJ estimate from the SCF microdata), mostly student loans.
These are benchmarks, not verdicts, and they describe households, not individuals. Where your own number stands starts with knowing it: tally yours in the net worth calculator in about two minutes.
Findings you can copy
Quote these as written, with attribution to FinExplained and a link to this page (the table is downloadable as CSV).
Among US households in the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the median net worth was $192,900 while the average was $1,063,700, more than five times higher, according to a FinExplained analysis of Bulletin Table 2.
Average net worth runs four to five times the median in every age band of the 2022 SCF, so a household comparing itself to the average is measuring against the wealthiest households’ pull on the math.
Median US household net worth peaks at $409,900 for ages 65 to 74 in the 2022 SCF, then declines at 75 and older as retirees spend down the savings they built.
Excluding home equity drops the median US household’s net worth from $192,900 to roughly $57,900, per Pew and DQYDJ analyses of the 2022 SCF.
Average and median net worth by age
In the Fed’s 2022 data, median household net worth climbs from $39,000 under age 35 to a peak of $409,900 at ages 65 to 74, while the average climbs from $183,500 to $1,794,600 over the same bands. The table below shows both, plus the gap between them, all in 2022 dollars from one source.
| Age group | Average net worth | Median net worth | Average minus median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | $183,500 | $39,000 | $144,500 |
| 35 to 44 | $549,600 | $135,600 | $414,000 |
| 45 to 54 | $975,800 | $247,200 | $728,600 |
| 55 to 64 | $1,566,900 | $364,500 | $1,202,400 |
| 65 to 74 | $1,794,600 | $409,900 | $1,384,700 |
| 75 and older | $1,624,100 | $335,600 | $1,288,500 |
| All families | $1,063,700 | $192,900 | $870,800 |
Source: Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances 2022 (Bulletin, October 2023, Table 2), in 2022 dollars. Household (family) figures by age of the reference person, not individual net worth, from about 4,600 interviewed families representing 131.3 million US households. Download this table as CSV (CC BY 4.0 compilation, figures attributed to the Federal Reserve).
Read the median column first. The median is the midpoint, so half of households in each band hold more and half hold less, which makes it the honest “typical household” line. The average column is real too, but it answers a different question, and the gap column shows how far the two drift apart as wealth concentrates with age.
What this means: at every age, most households hold far less than the average. If you compare yourself to the average, you are comparing yourself to a figure lifted by the largest fortunes, not to a typical peer.
One calibration before you read anything into your own number: the survey matters. The comparison below is two federal surveys reporting the same statistic on different methodologies in the same data year. Do not average them; the difference is the lesson.
| Measure | Fed SCF (2022) | Census SIPP (2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Median household net worth | $192,900 | $176,500 |
| Change since 2019, in 2022 dollars | Up 37 percent, the largest jump on record | Up from $136,500 |
What this means: two instruments, one direction, slightly different levels. The SCF median rose 37 percent in real terms from 2019 to 2022, and SIPP shows the same climb from $136,500 to $176,500 under its own method. That agreement in direction is what healthy survey data looks like, and the level difference is a methodology lesson, not an error to split.
Why is the average so much higher than the median?
The average is higher because wealth is right-skewed: a small number of very wealthy households pulls the mean up, while the median is unmoved by how rich the richest are. The Fed’s Distributional Financial Accounts show the top 10 percent of households holding roughly two-thirds of all US household wealth. Add that concentration to an average and it stops describing anyone typical.
The ladder makes it concrete. By DQYDJ’s estimates from the 2022 SCF microdata, the same dataset behind our percentile calculator, the median household holds about $192,084 while the 90th percentile starts near $1.92 million and the 99th near $13.7 million. Averaging a $13 million household with nine ordinary ones produces a number none of the ten actually has. For the full ladders bracket by bracket, the 25th through top 1 percent thresholds for 13 finer age groups, see our net worth percentile by age page.
Neither statistic is wrong. The average matters as macro context, roughly how much wealth exists per household, and it is the number headlines quote, so it is worth knowing. But for the question you actually came here with, “how do I compare,” use the median for your age band. Among households in this dataset, half sit below it by definition, so sitting under the average puts you in very large company.
Net worth by age: what the numbers mean
The bands below are the SCF’s native groupings, so the averages and medians stay from one consistent source. Single ages map into bands: a 32-year-old reads the under-35 row, a 48-year-old the 45 to 54 row. No source publishes reliable single-year figures, so neither do we.
Under 35
The under-35 median is $39,000 and the average is $183,500 (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). Small numbers are the norm here: careers are young, student loans are fresh, and the 10th percentile of this band sits at roughly minus $13,060 per DQYDJ’s estimate. Negative or near-zero at this age is a starting line, not a verdict.
The encouraging part of the data: this band’s median nearly tripled between 2019 and 2022, from $13,900 to $39,000, the fastest growth of any age group. What compounds from here is the saving habit, not the starting balance, and time is the one asset this band has more of than anyone. See what a decade of contributions becomes in the compound interest calculator.
35 to 44
The 35 to 44 band shows a $135,600 median against a $549,600 average, a 4.1x gap (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). This is the decade the balance sheet usually changes shape: a first home turns rent into equity, retirement accounts cross from rounding error to real money, and the spread between households widens fast.
It is also the decade of peak expenses, childcare and mortgages together, which is why plenty of households in this band feel behind while sitting exactly at the median. If a home purchase is the open question, the rent vs buy calculator shows what each path does to the unrecoverable-cost side of the ledger.
45 to 54
The 45 to 54 band holds a $247,200 median and a $975,800 average (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). Interestingly, this is the band with the narrowest ratio in the survey, 3.9x, though the dollar gap of $728,600 is anything but narrow. Wealth here is typically half home equity and half retirement accounts, both compounding at full speed.
These are the years when the comparison question turns into a planning question, because retirement is close enough to model and far enough to fix. Our 401(k) balance by age study shows the retirement-account slice of this same picture, our retirement savings by age study benchmarks every retirement account households hold from this same Fed survey (net worth counts the whole balance sheet; that study counts only the retirement slice of it), and the retirement on-track calculator turns the projection into a monthly-dollars answer.
55 to 64
The 55 to 64 band shows a $364,500 median against a $1,566,900 average (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). Balances climb steeply here: mortgages roll off, tuition ends, and catch-up contributions kick in, so the median jumps $117,300 over the prior band.
For most households this is the decade the number starts converting from a scoreboard into a paycheck plan. The size of the balance matters less than the income it can produce, which is where a withdrawal-rate frame helps more than any benchmark table. Our retirement income playbook walks that translation, balance to sustainable income, step by step.
65 to 74
Net worth peaks here: a $409,900 median and a $1,794,600 average (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). The band has had the longest run of compounding and home appreciation, and most of it has not been retired long enough to draw balances down. Both the median and the average top out in this band.
The composition shifts even as the total peaks: home equity’s share of assets declines with age while financial and retirement assets tilt upward. For a household entering this band, the claiming-age decision often moves more retirement income than any final year of saving. Estimate your Social Security alongside the balance sheet before setting a retirement date.
75 and older
The 75-and-older median eases to $335,600, down from the $409,900 peak, while the average stays high at $1,624,100 (SCF 2022, 2022 dollars). The decline is the plan working: retirees spend the savings they built, and each year of drawdown pulls the median lower. This band also shows the survey’s widest ratio, 4.8x, as large estates keep compounding while typical households draw down.
Two costs deserve respect in this band: medical and long-term care spending, and the quiet persistence of credit card debt, which the Richmond Fed’s portfolio research finds makes up nearly a third of retirees’ debt. A household here is managing a drawdown, and the useful benchmark is whether the withdrawal rate is sustainable, not the level of the balance.
What is a good net worth by age?
A reasonable benchmark is your age group’s median, because half of households have more and half have less, and unlike the average it is not distorted by the wealthiest. But a benchmark is a starting point, not a verdict: your number depends on income, debt, housing, family size, and cost of living, none of which a national table can see.
It helps to separate two questions the same table gets asked:
- What do households actually have? The medians above. This is observation, and it is the right calibration for “am I unusual.”
- What should I aim for? That is personal. Common frames include a multiple of income by age, a target replacement rate for retirement, or 25 times annual spending if early retirement is the goal, the framing our FIRE number playbook covers in depth.
The trap worth naming: “good” quietly drifts from “above the median” to “above the average” in most people’s heads, and the average is a bar most households sit far under. By DQYDJ’s estimates from the SCF microdata, the overall average lands above the 80th percentile, meaning roughly four in five households hold less than it. Choose the target on purpose, not by headline.
How to calculate your net worth
Net worth is one subtraction: everything you own at today’s market value, minus everything you owe. The judgment calls live in what counts and at what value, and the steps below settle the common ones.
How to calculate your net worth
- List everything you own at today's prices.Count cash and savings at face value, brokerage and retirement accounts at their full current balance, your home at a realistic sale price, and vehicles at resale value. Market value today, not what you paid, is the rule that keeps the number honest.
- List everything you owe.Add up the mortgage balance, auto and student loans, credit card balances you carry month to month, and anything owed to family, medical providers, or the IRS. Skipping a debt does not improve your finances; it only makes the total meaningless.
- Subtract debts from assets.Net worth is the difference, and it can be negative, which is a normal starting position early in a career. The net worth calculator tallies six asset categories against five debt categories and also reports your net worth excluding home equity, the more decision-ready figure.
- Recalculate quarterly with the same method.Use the same accounts and the same valuation habits every time, because the trend only means something when the measurements match. The direction of the line matters more than any single reading, and comparing against your age band's median once a year is plenty of benchmarking.
The net worth calculator runs this exact tally, six asset categories minus five debt categories, and reports the ex-home figure alongside the total. For the full what-counts walkthrough, including the pension and Social Security conventions, our net worth guide goes deeper than this page needs to.
What counts in net worth, and what stays out?
Count anything with a market price, at what it would sell for today. Leave out income streams and maybes. The convention matters because it is the same one the Fed’s survey uses, so following it keeps your number comparable to the medians on this page.
Counts as an asset: cash and savings, checking balances, brokerage investments, retirement accounts at full balance, your home at a realistic sale price, other real estate, vehicles at resale value, and business equity.
Counts as a liability: mortgage and HELOC balances, auto loans, student loans, credit card balances you carry, medical debt, and anything owed to family or the IRS.
Stays out: pensions you have not claimed and Social Security (income streams, not balances), expected inheritances, unvested equity, and your income itself. Net worth measures the stock of wealth, not the flow, which is why a high salary and a high net worth are different achievements.
Should home equity count in your net worth?
Yes. Home equity is real wealth and it belongs in the total, but it deserves its own line in your head, because it is wealth you live inside. The primary residence is the largest asset class in the country, $40.9 trillion in the 2022 SCF, more than a quarter of everything US households own.
What this means: for the typical household, most net worth is the house. The Census Bureau’s SIPP data shows the same force from another angle: median home equity for homeowning households rose $47,900 between 2019 and 2022, from $150,146 to $198,000, which is a large share of the period’s record wealth growth. None of that equity pays a grocery bill without a sale or a loan against the house.
Homeowning households hold far more net worth than renting households on average, but read that as correlation, not as the only path: a mortgage is a forced savings plan, and a renter who invests the difference consistently builds comparable wealth in more liquid form. If borrowing against equity is the question on your mind, the HELOC calculator prices what that access actually costs.
Liquid net worth vs total net worth
A household can be wealthy on paper and tight on cash in the same month. Total net worth counts everything; liquid net worth keeps only what you could spend soon, which makes it the number that answers emergency and flexibility questions.
Total net worth vs liquid net worth
Total net worth counts
- Cash and savings
- Brokerage investments
- Retirement accounts at full balance
- Home value minus the mortgage
- Vehicles at resale value
Liquid net worth keeps only
- Cash and savings
- Investments you could sell this week
- Retirement money only after penalties and taxes
- No home equity (you live in it)
- Minus the same debts
The worked household through the FinExplained net worth calculator engine: a $287,000 total net worth holds $110,000 of home equity, leaving $177,000 outside the house, and the liquid figure shrinks further once early-withdrawal penalties and taxes trim the retirement balance. Wealthy on paper and tight on cash can be the same household.
The two figures diverge most for exactly the households the medians describe: most wealth in a home and a retirement account, both real, neither spendable this quarter. Run your own split in the liquid net worth calculator, which shows the liquid figure next to your total and your months of runway; our liquid vs total explainer covers which number to plan with. If the liquid side turns out thin, an emergency fund is the first gap worth closing.
What if your net worth is negative or below the median?
You are in ordinary company. Half of households sit below the median for their age by definition, and among under-35 households the 10th percentile is roughly minus $13,060 by DQYDJ’s estimate from the SCF microdata, mostly student loans. Negative early is so common the survey data treats it as a normal life-cycle stage.
Debt composition matters more than the total. Education loans dominate young households’ debt, mortgages dominate midlife, and both are debt against something that appreciates, an earning career or a home. Revolving card debt is the kind that compounds against you, which is why it is the first target regardless of age. The debt snowball vs avalanche calculator shows both payoff orders on your actual balances, and our debt payoff playbook explains which order tends to stick.
Shame is not a strategy, and neither is comparing yourself to an average that most households sit below. The number is a starting line, and every extra debt payment moves it dollar for dollar.
How to grow net worth at any age
The subtraction only has three levers: grow assets, shrink debts, and widen the gap between income and spending that funds both. Everything that works is one of those three, applied for a long time.
- Automate investing first. Regular contributions into broad, boring investments do more than any clever move. The compound interest calculator shows what a fixed monthly amount becomes over 10, 20, and 30 years.
- Target expensive debt. Paying off a 22 percent card balance is a guaranteed return no market offers. Order matters less than starting; pick snowball or avalanche and keep going.
- Protect the downside. A cash cushion keeps a surprise from becoming card debt, which is how negative slopes usually start.
- Let time do the compounding. The medians in the table climb tenfold from under 35 to the peak band. Most of that is not heroics; it is decades.
If early retirement is even a maybe, the math has a name: your FIRE number, roughly 25 times annual spending. The FIRE calculator finds it from your own spending, and our FIRE number by metro study shows how much the city you retire in moves it.
Where do you rank?
Percentiles turn a dollar figure into a rank among all US households. The snapshot below uses DQYDJ’s estimates from the 2022 SCF microdata, the exact dataset behind our percentile calculator, labeled as the third-party estimate it is.
US household net worth by percentile, 2022 dollars (DQYDJ estimate)
- 25th percentile
- $27,016
- a quarter of households hold less
- Median (50th)
- $192,084
- the middle household
- 75th percentile
- $658,340
- three quarters hold less
- Top 10% (90th)
- $1,920,758
- nine in ten hold less
- Top 1% (99th)
- $13,666,778
- the concentration the average hides
Third-party estimate: DQYDJ derives these breakpoints from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances public-use microdata; the Federal Reserve does not publish this ladder directly. Same pinned dataset as our net worth percentile calculator.
What this means: the ladder rises gently through the middle and then leaps at the top, which is the skew from earlier made visible. Enter your own number in the net worth percentile calculator to see your all-ages band and how you compare with the median for your age group.
Methodology
Main table. Federal Reserve Bulletin, “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022” (published October 2023), Table 2, p.12: median and mean family net worth by age of reference person, in 2022 dollars, transcribed exactly. The 2022 wave interviewed 4,602 families representing 131.3 million US households. The gap column (average minus median) is derived by FinExplained. No other source appears in the main table.
Household basis. All figures describe the primary economic unit, what most people mean by a household, filed under the age of the reference person: the male in mixed-sex couples, the older partner in same-sex couples, per the Fed’s convention. They are not individual figures, and a benchmark for a dual-income couple naturally reads differently than one for a single earner.
Second opinion. The Census Bureau’s SIPP brief “The Wealth of Households: 2022” (P70BR-202, December 2024) reports a $176,500 median under a different methodology that excludes defined-benefit pension equity. We present the two side by side and never blend them. The CBO’s Social-Security-inclusive family wealth measure runs higher still (a $504,000 median in 2022), a useful reminder that “net worth” always means “under this survey’s definition.”
Third-party estimates. Percentile figures (the snapshot card, the top 10 percent and top 1 percent thresholds, and the under-35 10th percentile) are DQYDJ’s estimates derived from the 2022 SCF public-use microdata, the same pinned dataset our net worth percentile calculator uses. They are labeled as estimates because the Federal Reserve does not publish that ladder directly. The median excluding home equity (roughly $57,900) comes from Pew/DQYDJ analyses of the same survey.
Dollar basis and vintage. Every figure is in 2022 dollars from the 2022 SCF, the most recent wave. Figures are not adjusted forward to current prices. Survey estimates carry sampling error, and upper-tail thresholds are the least precise.
Worked example. The formula visual and the liquid-vs-total card use a worked household computed by the same tested, decimal-precise engine behind the site’s net worth calculator ($628,000 of assets against $341,000 of debts), the identical example our net worth guide walks through. It is an illustration of the arithmetic, not a benchmark.
Refresh cadence. The SCF is triennial. The 2025 wave began fielding in March 2025, with results expected in late 2026 (a projection based on the Fed’s usual cycle, not an official date). This page refreshes when the new Bulletin publishes, with changes recorded in the site changelog. The main table is downloadable as CSV.
Data sources
- Federal Reserve Bulletin, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022, Table 2, the study’s primary source.
- Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances, the survey’s home page and interactive tables.
- Federal Reserve, Distributional Financial Accounts, wealth shares by percentile group.
- Census Bureau, The Wealth of Households: 2022, the SIPP second opinion and home-equity detail.
- DQYDJ, net worth percentiles, third-party estimates from the 2022 SCF public-use microdata.
- Richmond Fed Economic Brief 23-39, portfolio composition across the wealth distribution.
- The main table is downloadable as CSV under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to FinExplained; the underlying figures belong to the Federal Reserve’s published research.
The benchmark is context, not a grade
The median for your age band tells you where you stand among households; it cannot tell you whether you are on track for your own life, which depends on numbers only you have. Run the subtraction in the net worth calculator, see where it lands in the percentile calculator if you are curious, and then put the table away. The only line on this chart you control is your own, and it moves one quarter at a time.