Net Worth by Age: What's Normal in 2026?

The numbers, by age

These are household net worth figures (total assets minus debt) from the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) — the same government survey behind every net-worth percentile on this site.

Overall, across every age combined, the median US household net worth is $192,084 and the average is $1,059,470.

Why "median" and "average" are so far apart here

Look at the under-35 row: the average ($183,500) is more than 4.7 times the median ($39,000). That gap isn't a typo — a relatively small number of very wealthy households (often with home equity, business ownership, or inherited wealth) pull the average up dramatically, while the typical household in that bracket has far less.

The median — the midpoint, where half of households have more and half have less — is the more honest answer to "what's normal for my age," which is why it's worth quoting over the average whenever you can.

The national net worth thresholds

Age aside, here's where the lines fall across all US households. Unlike income — where the Census's top bracket is open-ended at "$200,000 or more" — the Fed's SCF publishes actual figures all the way to the top:

The spread here is far more extreme than anything in the income data. The top 1% threshold is roughly 71 times the median, and roughly 7 times the top-10% line. Income simply doesn't stretch like that — which is part of why wealth concentration and income concentration are separate conversations, and why the top 1% income question can't be answered with the same confidence this table allows.

Look at the bottom row too. A household with $27,016 to its name is still ahead of a quarter of the country. A meaningful share of US households report zero or negative net worth, which is why the lower percentiles collapse toward nothing so quickly.

Why net worth has no state or county breakdown

Everywhere else on this site, you can narrow a comparison down to your state and county. Net worth is the exception: it's always compared against the whole US, and the pages say so explicitly.

The reason is the data source. The Survey of Consumer Finances is a detailed national survey — it asks households about assets and debts in a depth the Census's income tables never attempt — but its sample isn't large enough to produce reliable estimates for individual states, let alone counties. Publishing a "median net worth in your county" figure would mean inventing one, so we don't.

That's a real asymmetry worth remembering when you compare your two results. Your income percentile can be local; your net worth percentile can't. If you live somewhere with unusually high housing costs, your income ranking already reflects local conditions while your net worth ranking is measured against the entire country — see why a high income doesn't always mean you're ahead for why that distinction matters more than it sounds.

The under-35 caveat

The Fed's own published brackets start at "under 35," not "under 25" — so this site's "Under 25" and "25–34" age bands both use the same under-35 figures above. There isn't a separate published number for the youngest slice of that group; it's folded into the whole under-35 bracket.

What "net worth" includes (and doesn't)

Net worth here means total assets — cash, retirement accounts, home equity, investments — minus total debt. It's a broader number than a 401(k) balance alone (see your own 401(k) comparison for that specific figure) or take-home income; someone can have a modest salary and a large net worth built up over decades, or the reverse.

Income follows a very different age curve from the one above — it peaks in middle age and falls after 65, exactly when net worth is at its highest. See how income changes by age for that side of the picture.

One last framing note: like the income figures on this site, these are household numbers. A couple's combined assets and debts count as one household, not two — the same convention that trips people up on the income side, explained in household income vs. individual income.

Want to see where your own balance sheet lands, overall and against your age group? Check your net worth percentile.