INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM · THE PUBLIC INTEREST
Public RotFOLLOW THE POWER.
Power & Money Explainer

Average U.S. family wealth was nearly six times the median

The Fed’s 2025 survey puts median family wealth at $215,900. Historical research and Federal Reserve data document decades of rising concentration at the top.

Published Event / source date October 9, 2026By · AI-produced · 2 min readRevision 3 · Updated
AI-generated editorial illustration of ordinary households below a brightly lit luxury penthouse.
AI illustration · AI-generated editorial illustration of concentrated wealth and ordinary household life. The setting and people are symbolic, not a documented event. Image credit and license

The Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances estimates median family net worth at $215,900 and mean net worth at $1,241,500. The Fed released the findings on October 9, 2026, and expressed the amounts in 2025 dollars.

The median marks the middle of the wealth distribution: half of families fall above it and half below. The mean divides total wealth by the number of families, so large fortunes pull it upward. In the Fed’s table, the mean was about 5.75 times the median.

Between the 2022 and 2025 surveys, real median net worth rose 2 percent and the mean rose 7 percent, using the Fed’s rounded figures. The Fed described overall wealth inequality as little changed over that period.

Net worth counts assets minus debts, including housing and retirement savings. A family’s home equity contributes to its wealth even when it has little cash available for bills. The survey found a roughly unchanged homeownership rate and a slight increase in retirement-plan participation.

Economists Matthew Smith, Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick traced the wealthiest 0.1 percent of adults’ share of wealth from 7.1 percent in 1978 to 15.7 percent in 2016. Their 2023 study places the turning point in the late 1970s.

In the Fed’s household accounts, the wealthiest 1 percent held 22.8 percent of household net worth in the third quarter of 1989 and 32.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026. The bottom half’s share fell from 3.5 percent to 2.3 percent over that period.

Ownership helps explain the trajectory. Smith, Zidar and Zwick found that business ownership and corporate shares dominate wealth at the top, while housing and pensions account for most wealth in the bottom 90 percent. They linked the resurgence of stock wealth from the mid-1990s to gains in the top 1 percent’s share.

Income and saving also reinforce concentration. In their reconstruction of 1913–2012, published in 2016, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman attributed the rise to growing top incomes and a widening saving gap: wealthy families kept saving a large share of their income as saving fell among the bottom 90 percent. In their account, accumulated assets generated more capital income to save and invest.

More from Power & Money

The evidence record

Source claimThe October 9 release identifies the 2025 survey and reports median $215,900 and mean approximately $1.24 million.

Article paragraph: 1

Inspect the supporting source

Source claimTable 2 gives mean net worth of $1,241,500 and median net worth of $215,900 in 2025 dollars; Appendix A defines the median.

Article paragraphs: 1, 2

Inspect the supporting source

AnalysisThe published mean divided by the median is approximately 5.75035.

Article paragraph: 2

1,241,500 / 215,900 = approximately 5.75035, calculated from Table 2’s displayed survey estimates. Large values receive their full weight in the arithmetic mean; the median identifies the middle of the ranked distribution.

Source claimThe report gives rounded real median/mean changes of 2 and 7 percent and says overall wealth inequality changed little.

Article paragraph: 3

Inspect the supporting source

Source claimThe release describes net housing wealth, retirement participation and homeownership findings.

Article paragraph: 4

Inspect the supporting source

AnalysisHome equity contributes to net worth even when a family has little cash available for bills.

Article paragraph: 4

Net worth includes housing and retirement assets after debt. The liquidity example explains this balance-sheet definition.

Source claimThe published baseline series puts the top 0.1 percent of adults at 7.1 percent of wealth in 1978 and 15.7 percent in 2016, with its low point in the late 1970s.

Article paragraph: 5

Inspect the supporting source

Source claimThe Fed dataset supplies household net-worth levels and shares for the five wealth groups in 1989 Q3 and 2026 Q2.

Article paragraph: 6

Inspect the supporting source

AnalysisCombining the two highest wealth groups yields a top-1-percent share of 22.8 percent in 1989 Q3 and 32.5 percent in 2026 Q2; bottom-half shares round to 3.5 and 2.3 percent.

Article paragraph: 6

Calculate 100 × (TopPt1 + RemainingTop1 net worth) / total net worth across all five groups. Levels yield 22.806402752% and 32.487309631%. Bottom50 / total yields 3.511960041% and 2.304343875%. Each endpoint uses the same September 2026 dataset and Net worth field.

Source claimThe authors describe the distribution of business/stock versus housing/pension wealth and the stock-wealth resurgence from the mid-1990s.

Article paragraph: 7

Inspect the supporting source

Source claimSaez and Zucman’s 1913–2012 reconstruction attributes rising concentration to top incomes and saving differences, with accumulating wealth generating further capital income.

Article paragraph: 8

Inspect the supporting source

Sources and access

Each source record identifies its reporting origin, access scope and the date we checked it.

  1. Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025

    Federal Reserve Board · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Federal Reserve Board
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    Net Worth, printed pp. 11–12 (PDF pp. 17–18); Appendix A, printed pp. 39–40 (PDF pp. 45–46).
    Source publication
    October 9, 2026

    Selected sections examined; Table 2 visually checked against the downloaded official PDF. Exact capture SHA-256: eda4822ea2144b428d3ac60c3a1ddb342d84f24d2410fc4b4d6c48183ec821d8. This is the same underlying SCF research as the other links.

  2. Federal Reserve releases results of the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances

    Federal Reserve Board · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Federal Reserve Board
    Access
    Full text
    Locator
    October 9 release; key findings on net worth, homeownership and retirement participation.
    Source publication
    October 9, 2026

    Official summary of the same survey; not a second independent study.

  3. Survey of Consumer Finances: current survey and technical documentation

    Federal Reserve Board · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Federal Reserve Board
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    Current survey; historical tables; Survey Data and Replicate Weight Files warning; Missing Data section.

    The page labels October 9 as its update date. This record refers to the current survey page checked on November 5, not an independently produced dataset.

  4. Top Wealth in America: New Estimates under Heterogeneous Returns

    Smith, Zidar and Zwick; Quarterly Journal of Economics · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Smith, Zidar and Zwick; Quarterly Journal of Economics
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    Published 2023 paper, section VI.C p. 557; Table III pp. 564–565; portfolio discussion pp. 518, 553 and 560–561.

    Author-hosted published PDF; selected sections read and the historical table visually checked. Individual/adult series splits wealth equally within tax units. Its baseline includes funded pensions and excludes unfunded defined-benefit pensions, Social Security and consumer durables. Capture SHA-256: 520d0b96a8ced8a014794b2510471c6ceef76cc24302a409c128786df97d7817. Source-check date records the research day in America/New_York; the handoff did not retain an exact per-source time.

  5. Distributional Financial Accounts data, September 2026 release

    Federal Reserve Board · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Federal Reserve Board
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    dfa-networth-levels.csv and dfa-networth-shares.csv, Net worth column; all five wealth groups at 1989:Q3 and 2026:Q2. Definitions file for household coverage.
    Source publication
    September 18, 2026

    Official dataset parsed from the downloaded ZIP. Top 1 percent combines TopPt1 and RemainingTop1; shares recomputed from levels before rounding. Household series includes consumer durables and defined-benefit pension entitlements. ZIP SHA-256: e7f35451dc4df13986ef416d8659d00689ad98a9af79f4b09977e41be5e35919. Source-check date records the research day in America/New_York; the handoff did not retain an exact per-source time.

  6. Distributional Financial Accounts overview

    Federal Reserve Board · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Federal Reserve Board
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    Overview opening paragraphs, data download and release date.
    Source publication
    September 18, 2026

    Methodology for the same DFA dataset. The accounts combine SCF distributions with Financial Accounts totals, interpolate between surveys and estimate quarters beyond the latest survey. This September 2026 release preceded the October 2026 SCF release. Source-check date records the research day in America/New_York; the handoff did not retain an exact per-source time.

  7. Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913

    Saez and Zucman; Quarterly Journal of Economics · Checked November 5, 2026

    Recorded relationship
    original
    Origin
    Saez and Zucman; Quarterly Journal of Economics
    Access
    Selected excerpt
    Locator
    Introduction p. 523 and section VI.B pp. 563–565.

    Author-hosted published 2016 paper; selected sections on the authors’ explanation of income, saving and wealth accumulation. The explanation comes from their 1913–2012 reconstruction. Capture SHA-256: d2613c41cd596651562d0c285494dfa1fbf2aba4942f13dc93e67a52921e9148. Source-check date records the research day in America/New_York; the handoff did not retain an exact per-source time.

Prepared with AI research and writing tools. Sources and evidence are listed below. Common Record is responsible for the published account.

Revision record

  1. Revision 1 · November 5, 2026

    Initial publication.

  2. Revision 2 · November 5, 2026

    Editorial wording update: removed repetitive disclaimers and interpretive instructions, clarified the finding, and consolidated source and method details. The reported figures and underlying findings are unchanged.

  3. Revision 3 · November 5, 2026

    Added a concise history of rising U.S. wealth concentration since the late 1970s, with published research, Federal Reserve household-wealth data and explanations of asset ownership and saving. The existing survey figures remain unchanged.

These are the recorded publication notices. Open reader tools, full available revisions or report a possible error →