Average Household Net Worth (2026)

"Average household net worth" is one of the most misleading phrases in personal finance. The average (mean) US family had a net worth of $1,241,500 in 2025, but the typical (median) family had just $215,900, according to the Federal Reserve's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances (see the chart and table below).

The mean is about 5.8 times the median. That gap exists because a small number of very wealthy households pull the average sharply upward, so the median, the household right in the middle, is the honest measure of what a typical family is worth.

American households got a lot richer between 2019 and 2022. Median net worth jumped 37% in real terms, the largest three-year increase in the modern survey's history, more than double the next-biggest on record. The gains were broad, driven by rising home values, a strong stock market, and pandemic-era stimulus and saving.

The 2025 survey shows that surge cooling. After inflation, median net worth rose just 2% between 2022 and 2025 and the mean 7%, and the Fed describes wealth inequality as little changed. Young families went backward: the median for families under 35 fell 23% to $33,000 as business-equity gains from 2019-2022 unwound, while families 75 and older gained 37%.

The distribution is steep. In the 2025 survey it took a net worth of about $2.54 million to reach the top 10% of families, up from $2.12 million in 2022 (2025 dollars), and the 75th percentile rose to $812,800 (see the table below). Older aggregator estimates on a 2022 basis put the top 5% near $3.78 million and the top 1% near $13.67 million.

At the other end, the 25th percentile is just $27,900, and the bottom quarter of families had a median net worth of $1,700 and a negative mean (-$4,300), meaning many owe more than they own. The jump from median ($216k) to top-10% ($2.5M) is nearly twelvefold.

In aggregate, the household balance sheet is dominated by two assets: stocks and homes. At the end of June 2026, directly and indirectly held equity shares were the largest category at $74.0 trillion, followed by owner-occupied real estate ($49.8 trillion), deposits and money market funds ($20.3 trillion), noncorporate business equity ($16.8 trillion), and defined benefit pension entitlements ($16.7 trillion) (Fed Z.1, see the chart above).

That ordering is telling: equities have overtaken real estate as the biggest store of household wealth, which is why stock-market swings now move aggregate net worth more than housing does. In Q2 2026 alone, equity holdings rose $10.7 trillion while real estate added $1.1 trillion. Against those assets sit about $21.4 trillion in household debt, mostly $14.0 trillion in mortgages and $5.1 trillion in consumer credit.

Education tracks wealth as strongly as almost any factor. In 2025, median net worth ran from $18,600 for families without a high-school diploma to $505,400 for those with a college degree, roughly a 27-fold gap (see the chart and tables below).

The gap widened mainly from the bottom: the median for families without a diploma fell 55% from 2022, the largest decline for that group in the modern survey, while college graduates held steady. A degree is not a guarantee, but the wealth gradient is steep, and the Fed notes college-degree families had 1.9 times the median income of those with some college but almost 3 times the median net worth.

Net worth divides sharply by race. The typical White non-Hispanic family had a median net worth of $332,100 in 2025, versus $36,800 for the typical Black family and $79,600 for Hispanic families; Asian families had the highest median at $677,600 (see the table below).

The direction differed by group. Black families' median fell 25% from 2022, pushing the White-Black median ratio to nine times, the largest since 2016, while Hispanic families' median rose 18%, leaving the White-Hispanic ratio the smallest on record. See our wealth inequality page for the full breakdown of the racial wealth gap.

Income and wealth reinforce each other. Families in the bottom fifth of usual income had a median net worth of $14,400 in 2025, while those in the top tenth had a median of $3,669,900, up 31% from 2022 (see the table below).

The 2025 survey shows the gap widening at the ends: median net worth fell 6% for the lowest income quintile and rose 8% for families between the 40th and 80th percentiles. Higher incomes make it possible to save and invest, which builds the wealth that then generates more income.

No single factor separates the wealthy from the rest like owning a home. Homeowners had a median net worth of $458,900 in 2025, up 6% from 2022, about 43 times the $10,600 median for renters, which fell 7% (see the tables below).

Some of that reflects the home equity itself: the median net housing value for owners was $230,000 in 2025. Much reflects what homeownership represents: the income and stability to qualify, plus the forced saving of paying down a mortgage. The homeownership rate held near 66%.

Zoom out to the whole economy and the numbers are staggering. Total US household net worth reached a record $195.9 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, up $12.8 trillion in the quarter alone, mostly from capital gains on stocks (Fed Z.1).

The ratio of household net worth to disposable personal income hit a record 8.28 in that quarter, passing the previous peak from early 2022. Because equities are the largest asset, aggregate wealth now rises and falls largely with the stock market: it dipped in early 2025 before rebounding.

The record aggregate wealth is not evenly held. In Q2 2026 the top 1% of households owned 32.5% of all wealth, and the top 0.1% owned 15.0%, both the highest in the series that starts in 1989, while the bottom 50% held just 2.3% (Fed DFA).

That concentration has grown since 1989, when the top 1% held about 22.8%, driven largely by stock ownership: the top 1% held about half of all corporate equities and mutual fund shares in Q2 2026. Our wealth inequality page covers the distribution and its causes in depth.

It's worth restating the core caveat, because it shapes how you should read every "average net worth" headline. The mean describes a distribution dominated by the wealthy; the median describes a typical household. They differ by more than fivefold.

When you see "the average American family is worth over a million dollars," remember that the typical family is worth about $216,000. Always look for the median beside the mean, and anchor your own sense of "normal" to the median.

Net worth also builds over a lifetime, rising from near zero in early adulthood toward retirement. In the 2025 survey, families 75 and older had the highest median net worth ($504,900), ahead of families aged 65-74 ($431,300), a change from previous surveys driven mainly by rising retirement-account values.

Because the age pattern is so pronounced, comparing yourself to the overall median can mislead: families under 35 had a median of just $33,000 in 2025. See our net worth by age page for the full age breakdown.

The data points to a clear wealth-building formula, visible in what separates high-net-worth households: own your home, invest in equities (especially through tax-advantaged retirement accounts), and build a business or human capital where you can.

Those are exactly the assets that dominate the aggregate balance sheet, stocks, real estate, and pensions. You don't need a high income to start; you need to consistently convert income into these appreciating assets and let them compound. That, far more than any single windfall, is how the median household moves up the distribution.