The median US household net worth runs from $10,222 at ages 18 to 24 to a peak of $438,700 at 70 to 74, and reaching the top 10 percent takes anywhere from $184,516 to just over $3 million depending on your bracket. Those are DQYDJ’s estimates from the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances microdata, and this page publishes the full ladders.
Percentile questions are really ranking questions: not “is my number big,” but “where does it sit among households my age.” Averages answer that badly, because a small group of very wealthy households drags them far above the middle. The ladders below give you the honest reference points, the 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles plus the top 1 percent, for 13 age brackets, with and without the house.
Key findings
- Median household net worth rises from $10,222 at 18 to 24 to $88,631 at 30 to 34, $266,140 at 50 to 54, and a peak of $438,700 at 70 to 74 (DQYDJ estimates from the 2022 SCF microdata, including home equity, in 2022 dollars).
- The 90th percentile crosses $1 million in the 40 to 44 bracket ($1,182,580) and peaks at $3,042,280 at 60 to 64. The top 1% threshold peaks at about $22.1 million at 65 to 69.
- Excluding the primary residence cuts the 55 to 59 median from $321,074 to $131,460 and the 65 to 69 median from $393,480 to $132,290: for a typical household near retirement, over half of net worth is the house.
- The 40 to 44 median ($134,382) sits slightly below the 35 to 39 median ($138,588), a real feature of the microdata consistent with peak spending years, published here unsmoothed.
- The same dataset’s overall figures anchor our net worth percentile calculator exactly: $192,084 median, $1,059,470 average, and $13,666,778 for the top 1 percent across all ages.
These are benchmarks, not verdicts. To see your own rank against this same dataset, use the net worth percentile calculator.
Net worth percentiles by age
Find your age bracket’s row and read across: a quarter of households sit below the 25th percentile column, half below the median, and one in ten above the 90th. All figures include home equity and are household totals in 2022 dollars.
| Age | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | 90th pct | Top 1% | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-24 | $88 | $10,222 | $33,898 | $184,516 | $653,224 | $112,104 |
| 25-29 | $3,784 | $31,470 | $130,606 | $296,830 | $2,121,910 | $120,183 |
| 30-34 | $11,016 | $88,631 | $186,140 | $538,750 | $2,636,882 | $258,075 |
| 35-39 | $16,548 | $138,588 | $389,432 | $864,340 | $4,741,320 | $501,295 |
| 40-44 | $23,812 | $134,382 | $436,892 | $1,182,580 | $7,835,420 | $590,710 |
| 45-49 | $47,668 | $213,586 | $680,298 | $1,428,714 | $8,701,500 | $781,936 |
| 50-54 | $54,414 | $266,140 | $913,012 | $2,576,540 | $13,231,940 | $1,132,497 |
| 55-59 | $84,977 | $321,074 | $1,137,318 | $2,672,160 | $15,371,684 | $1,441,987 |
| 60-64 | $80,372 | $392,860 | $1,131,122 | $3,042,280 | $17,869,960 | $1,675,294 |
| 65-69 | $68,972 | $393,480 | $1,154,552 | $2,961,060 | $22,102,660 | $1,836,884 |
| 70-74 | $124,757 | $438,700 | $1,234,946 | $2,999,396 | $18,761,580 | $1,714,085 |
| 75-79 | $89,504 | $338,180 | $991,520 | $2,914,188 | $19,868,894 | $1,629,275 |
| 80+ | $95,230 | $327,200 | $944,334 | $2,540,500 | $16,229,800 | $1,611,984 |
Source: DQYDJ, third-party estimates from the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances public-use microdata, on a primary economic unit (PEU) basis. Household figures, not individual targets; defined benefit pensions and Social Security are not capitalized into any figure. Top-1% cells and the youngest and oldest brackets rest on small samples and are approximate. Download both views as CSV (CC BY 4.0 compilation, figures attributed to DQYDJ).
Two patterns are worth naming. First, the spread explodes with age: at 18 to 24 the distance from the 25th to the 90th percentile is about $184,000, while at 60 to 64 it is nearly $3 million, because decades of compounding, home appreciation, and business ownership push the top of each cohort far from the middle. Second, the median keeps climbing into the early 70s. Wealth peaks later than income does, and a falling balance after 74 is mostly retirees spending what they built.
How do you read a percentile ladder?
Your percentile is the share of households in your bracket holding less than you. Sitting at the 75th percentile at 45 to 49 means holding more than three quarters of households your age, $680,298 or above in this data. The median is simply the 50th percentile, and it is the fairest single benchmark because it ignores how extreme the extremes are.
One warning about the average column: in every bracket it runs far above the median, at 30 to 34 nearly three times as high ($258,075 against $88,631). That is not because typical households are behind; it is arithmetic. A handful of very large balance sheets pulls every average up, which is exactly why this page ranks by percentile instead.
What changes when you take the house out?
For most households, the house is the single biggest line on the balance sheet, and removing it drops the median by half or more through the middle brackets. The 55 to 59 median falls from $321,074 to $131,460, roughly a 59 percent drop, and the 65 to 69 median falls about 66 percent, from $393,480 to $132,290.
| Age | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct | 90th pct | Top 1% | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-24 | $74 | $9,774 | $22,616 | $74,184 | $553,224 | $83,365 |
| 25-29 | $1,218 | $19,270 | $71,680 | $191,604 | $1,877,120 | $84,699 |
| 30-34 | $2,530 | $36,178 | $100,248 | $291,262 | $2,403,902 | $182,198 |
| 35-39 | $8,070 | $43,416 | $208,930 | $645,320 | $4,556,660 | $380,972 |
| 40-44 | $8,699 | $57,668 | $245,586 | $818,830 | $6,702,740 | $436,408 |
| 45-49 | $15,144 | $92,370 | $408,002 | $1,000,826 | $7,661,420 | $575,097 |
| 50-54 | $13,406 | $94,923 | $531,484 | $1,971,490 | $11,897,166 | $861,235 |
| 55-59 | $15,108 | $131,460 | $709,824 | $2,013,360 | $14,054,100 | $1,148,392 |
| 60-64 | $12,202 | $143,640 | $751,586 | $2,489,008 | $15,620,874 | $1,364,736 |
| 65-69 | $11,780 | $132,290 | $784,100 | $2,302,160 | $18,992,040 | $1,512,595 |
| 70-74 | $28,440 | $237,692 | $770,944 | $2,456,520 | $16,459,620 | $1,380,172 |
| 75-79 | $12,818 | $112,106 | $527,860 | $2,384,808 | $17,971,150 | $1,308,408 |
| 80+ | $17,284 | $88,049 | $524,526 | $1,860,666 | $15,590,600 | $1,284,384 |
Source: DQYDJ, third-party estimates from the Federal Reserve's 2022 SCF public-use microdata (PEU basis). Comparing a row here with the including-home table above shows how much of each bracket's wealth sits in the primary residence. Download both views as CSV.
Neither view is the wrong one. Home equity is real wealth, and it is also wealth you cannot spend without selling, downsizing, or borrowing against the roof over your head. If the retirement question is what you could actually draw on, the excluding-home ladder is the sterner, more useful mirror, and our liquid net worth explainer pushes the same idea one step further into what is spendable this year.
Is the dip at 40 to 44 an error?
No. The 40 to 44 median of $134,382 really does sit below the 35 to 39 median of $138,588 in this dataset, and we publish it as is. The dip is small, within the noise of a survey this size, and it lines up with the most expensive stretch of many households’ lives: peak childcare, peak housing costs, and college saving all landing at once. The broader climb resumes immediately, with the 45 to 49 median at $213,586.
How much can you trust these numbers?
Trust the middle of each ladder most, and the edges least. The estimates come from about 4,602 SCF surveys spread across 13 brackets, so a single bracket rests on 111 observations (ages 18 to 24) to 536 (ages 60 to 64). Medians and quartiles are stable at those sample sizes; a bracket’s top 1 percent reflects only a handful of households and is approximate, per DQYDJ’s own warning.
Three definitional limits matter just as much. These are household figures on a PEU basis, so couples pool everything into one row and a household percentile is not a personal one. The proximate source is DQYDJ’s estimate from public-use microdata, not a direct Federal Reserve publication, because the Fed does not publish per-age ladders. And no figure capitalizes defined benefit pensions or Social Security, which makes older cohorts look less wealthy than their retirements will feel. The full sample counts per bracket are in the methodology below and in the CSV download.
How does this relate to our other benchmarks?
This page and our net worth by age study read the same 2022 survey at different resolutions: the study uses the Fed’s six official age bands to compare average against median, while this page uses DQYDJ’s 13 finer brackets to publish full percentile ladders. The bands do not line up one to one, so never merge the two tables; use the study for the average-vs-median story and this page for ranking. For the retirement slice of the same balance sheet, our retirement savings by age study benchmarks retirement accounts alone, where the middle looks far thinner than total net worth suggests.
Where do you rank?
A table can bracket you; the calculator can place you. The net worth percentile calculator is built on this same DQYDJ dataset by construction, so the rank it reports and the ladders on this page can never disagree. If you have not totaled your number recently, start with the net worth calculator, then come back and place it.
Methodology
Source. DQYDJ’s net worth percentiles by age, estimated from the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances public-use microdata (DQYDJ labels the vintage 2023 because about a quarter of the wave’s interviews ran into 2023; it is the same 2022 survey). All figures in 2022 dollars, on a primary economic unit basis, transcribed and pinned on 2026-07-07. The Federal Reserve does not publish per-age percentile ladders directly, so these are third-party estimates and labeled as such everywhere.
Consistency with the calculator. The same dataset’s overall anchors, a $192,084 median and a $13,666,778 top 1 percent, equal the values pinned in the net worth percentile calculator’s dataset exactly, and an automated integrity suite fails our build if the two ever drift.
Sample sizes. Surveys per bracket: 18-24: 111. 25-29: 211. 30-34: 291. 35-39: 352. 40-44: 411. 45-49: 396. 50-54: 424. 55-59: 490. 60-64: 536. 65-69: 492. 70-74: 374. 75-79: 256. 80+: 251. In total 4,602 surveys (7 redactions) representing an estimated 131.3 million PEUs. Small brackets make the youngest, oldest, and all top-1% figures approximate.
Definitions. Net worth is all assets minus all liabilities. The including-home view counts the primary residence and its mortgage; the excluding-home view removes both. Defined benefit pensions and Social Security are not capitalized in either view. Figures are point-in-time survey estimates, not longitudinal tracks of the same households.
Limitations. The SCF is triennial; the 2025 wave is expected in late 2026 (a projection, not an official Fed date), and this page refreshes with it alongside our other SCF-based pages. Percentile thresholds move with markets and home prices between waves. This page is educational, not financial advice.
Data sources
- DQYDJ, Net Worth Percentiles by Age, estimates from the 2022 SCF public-use microdata (third-party estimates, PEU basis).
- Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022 wave, the underlying survey.
- Both views are downloadable as CSV under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to FinExplained; the underlying estimates belong to DQYDJ’s published analysis.
A rank is a starting point
Knowing you sit at the 40th or the 80th percentile for your age changes nothing about whether your own plan is funded; it only tells you where the crowd is. Use the ladders to calibrate expectations, use the excluding-home view to keep the house honest, and then trade the crowd’s numbers for yours: find your percentile, and if the answer prompts a plan, the net worth calculator is where the tally starts.