Net worth percentile by income, across the household distribution
The Federal Reserve publishes net worth by income percentile alongside its age tables, and the two cuts answer different questions. This one shows how household net worth percentile position tracks earnings: households in the lowest income fifth hold a median of $14,000, while those in the top tenth hold $2,556,200, a gap far wider than the income gap that produced it.
The figures, in one line each
- Lowest 20%
- $14,000
- 20–39.9%
- $71,000
- 40–59.9%
- $159,300
- 60–79.9%
- $307,200
- 80–89.9%
- $747,000
- Top 10%
- $2,556,200
Median household net worth by income percentile, 2022 survey. Income and wealth track each other closely, and the relationship is not linear.
Net worth percentile by income, band by band
The survey sorts households by usual income and publishes the median net worth of each band, which is what a net worth percentile position by income actually rests on. Reading down the column, wealth rises with income at every step, and it rises much faster than income does, because saving is a residual: it is what is left after consumption, and it grows disproportionately as income rises above the cost of living.
The result is that the wealth distribution is far more unequal than the income distribution measured on the same households in the same survey. That is not an interpretation; it is visible in the two tables side by side.
| Income band | Median net worth |
|---|---|
| Lowest 20% | $14,000 |
| 20–39.9% | $71,000 |
| 40–59.9% | $159,300 |
| 60–79.9% | $307,200 |
| 80–89.9% | $747,000 |
| Top 10% | $2,556,200 |
Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 2023, table 2, income-percentile rows.
Why the household is the unit, and what that conceals
Every figure here is a household figure. That is the right unit for most purposes: bills are paid by households and assets are usually held jointly, and it hides two things worth naming.
It hides household size: a single earner and a couple with the same income appear in the same band with very different per-person positions. And it hides composition: a household net worth percentile position built on a paid-down house is a different economic reality from the same figure held in liquid assets, even though the survey records them identically.
The distribution behind the bands
A net worth percentile band is a slice of a distribution, and slices hide their own spread. The survey publishes a second cut: by wealth group rather than income, which shows how much variation sits inside each slice. The least wealthy quarter of households has a median of $3,500 and a mean of about −$5,300, meaning the average household in that group owes more than it owns.
That single line does more to explain the shape of the American wealth distribution than any summary statistic. It is also why this site never quotes a national average as though it described a household.
The same table shows how quickly the picture changes one step up. The next quarter of households holds a median near ninety thousand dollars, and the quarter above that more than three hundred and fifty thousand, so the distance between the second and third quarters is larger than the entire range beneath them.
| Group of households | Median | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| Least wealthy 25% | $3,500 | $-5,300 |
| 25–49.9% | $93,300 | $98,800 |
| 50–74.9% | $356,300 | $373,700 |
| 75–89.9% | $1,036,200 | $1,102,400 |
| Wealthiest 10% | $3,794,600 | $7,810,500 |
Why an income band is not a wealth band
The two are measured at different moments. Income is a flow over a year; wealth is a stock at a point. A household can sit high in the income distribution and low in the wealth distribution: early in a career, with debt outstanding, or the reverse, in retirement with assets and little income. The percentile calculator compares a single figure against these same published bands.
The survey publishes both cuts for exactly that reason, and this section keeps them on separate pages — the cut by age beside this one — rather than merging them into a single ranking. A reader who wants to know where a household sits needs to say which of the two questions is being asked.
What else the survey ties to wealth
Two other cuts in the same table are worth having beside the income one, because they explain much of the variation inside each band: housing status and education. Both are published as medians in exactly the same form. The top of the distribution is published separately again, and on its own terms.
| Group | Median net worth |
|---|---|
| Homeowner households | $396,200 |
| Renter or other households | $10,400 |
| College degree | $464,600 |
| High-school diploma | $106,800 |
| No high-school diploma | $38,100 |
The owner-renter gap is the largest single division in the table, and it is mostly a statement about housing equity rather than about income.
Questions readers send
Which cut should a household compare itself against?
The age cut for a life-stage comparison and the income cut for a peer comparison. They answer different questions, and the survey publishes both precisely so the two do not get merged into one ranking.
What is net worth by income percentile in the US?
Median household net worth runs from $14,000 in the lowest income fifth to $2,556,200 in the top tenth, in the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances.
Why is wealth more unequal than income?
Because saving is what remains after consumption. As income rises above the cost of living, the share available to accumulate rises disproportionately, so wealth gaps widen faster than the income gaps that produce them.
Does the least wealthy quarter really have negative average net worth?
Yes. Its median in 2022 was about $3,500 and its mean about −$5,300, which means the average household in that group owed more than it owned.
Where the survey is published
- 01 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Median and mean family net worth for the 2019 and 2022 surveys, by age, income percentile and wealth group “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 2023, table 2