United States household net worth, as the Federal Reserve measures it
There is one wealth measurement in the United States that anybody can check: the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, which measures assets minus debts for a representative sample of households and publishes the distribution. The 2022 release put the median household at $192,900 and the mean at $1,063,700, and the gap between those two numbers is the most important thing on this page.
Household data on file
- Net worth by age $192,900 median Median and mean household net worth by age of the reference person
- Net worth by income percentile 6 bands How wealth tracks income across the distribution
- Top 1 percent net worth $3,794,600 What the survey publishes at the top, and what it does not
- Percentile calculator Compare a figure against the published bands, in your browser
- How to calculate your net worth The definition the survey uses, applied to a household
Why the median and the mean disagree by a factor of five
The mean is the total wealth of all households divided by the number of households. Because wealth is concentrated at the top of the distribution, a small number of very large balance sheets pull the mean far above what a typical household holds. The median is the midpoint: half of households hold less, half hold more.
In the 2022 survey the mean is roughly five and a half times the median. Any statement about "the average American household" that uses the mean is describing a household that barely exists. Every page in this section leads with medians and shows the means beside them, so the concentration is visible rather than hidden.
| Measure | Amount | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Median household net worth | $192,900 | The midpoint: half hold less, half hold more |
| Mean household net worth | $1,063,700 | The total divided by the number of households |
Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 2023, table 2. Thousands of 2022 dollars in the original; converted to whole dollars here.
What the survey counts as net worth
Assets minus liabilities for the household: property, retirement accounts, financial assets, vehicles and business interests on one side; mortgages, student loans, credit balances and other debts on the other. The definition is published with the survey, which is what makes the figures comparable between releases.
It is a household measure, not an individual one, and it is a sample. Both facts matter when reading any single number from it: the survey describes a distribution, and no row in it describes a particular family.
What the survey cannot do, and what replaces it
It is triennial, so the most recent release is always one to three years old. It is a sample, so every figure carries a standard error, published alongside it in the Bulletin. And it is national: it does not describe a state, a city or a neighbourhood.
For movement between releases the Federal Reserve publishes the Distributional Financial Accounts, a quarterly series that estimates how total wealth is shared between groups. That series answers a different question: shares of the whole rather than the position of a household, and this section keeps the two apart rather than blending them into one trend line.
Neither can be pushed into describing an individual. A distribution is a statement about a population, and the moment it is applied to one named person it stops being evidence.
Why this section exists on a site about documented figures
Because it is the answer to the question the rest of the site refuses. A reader who wants to know what a wealth figure means, or where their own household sits, can be given a documented answer: measured by a public institution, published with its method, and reproducible.
What cannot be given is a figure for a named private person. The survey measures the distribution precisely because individual balance sheets are not public. That distinction is the whole editorial position of this site.
Questions readers send
What is the median US household net worth?
$192,900 in the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. The mean for the same release is $1,063,700, because wealth is concentrated at the top of the distribution.
How often is the survey published?
Every three years. The 2022 release was published in the Federal Reserve Bulletin in October 2023, which is the edition used throughout this section.
Does it describe individuals?
No. It measures households, from a representative sample, and publishes the distribution. No row describes a particular family.
Is net worth measured before or after debt?
After. Net worth in the survey is everything a household owns minus everything it owes, so a mortgage, a car loan and student debt are already subtracted. That is why the least wealthy group can hold a negative mean.
The registers behind this page
- 01 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Median and mean household net worth for 2019 and 2022, by age, income and wealth group “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 2023, table 2