Graph and download economic data for Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005Q) from Q4 1987 to Q1 2025 about net worth, Net, households, and USA.

In the first quarter of 2025, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States was the country with the most billionaires in the world in 2025. Elon Musk, with a net worth of 342 billion U.S. dollars, was among the richest people in the United States in 2025. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

Graph and download economic data for Share of Net Worth Held by the Top 1% (99th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBST01134) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

The average net worth of families in the United States increased nearly twofold between 1989 and 2007, when it reached ******* U.S. dollars. Following the financial crisis of 2008, the average net worth of Americans families dropped to ******* U.S. in 2013. In the following years, American families' net worth started increasing again, reaching a value of nearly ******* U.S. dollars.

In the first quarter of 2024, 51.8 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by members of the baby boomer generation. In comparison, millennials own around 9.4 percent of total wealth in the U.S. In terms of population distribution, there is almost an equal share of millennials and baby boomers in the United States.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Bottom 50% (1st to 50th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLB50107) from Q3 1989 to Q1 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

This statistic shows the median net worth by in U.S. households by age of householder in 2011. The net worth describes personal assets minus debt. Median denotes the midpoint of a group—in this case the point at which 50 percent of the households have more wealth and 50 percent have less. In 2011, the median net worth of people aged younger than 35 was 6,676 U.S. dollars. This is much less than the median net worth of all householders, which is at approximately 69,000 U.S. dollars.

In the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. Income inequality in the U.S. Despite the idea that the United States is a country where hard work and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will inevitably lead to success, this is often not the case. In 2023, 7.4 percent of U.S. households had an annual income under 15,000 U.S. dollars. With such a small percentage of people in the United States owning such a vast majority of the country’s wealth, the gap between the rich and poor in America remains stark. The top one percent The United States follows closely behind China as the country with the most billionaires in the world. Elon Musk alone held around 219 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Over the past 50 years, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio has exploded, causing the gap between rich and poor to grow, with some economists theorizing that this gap is the largest it has been since right before the Great Depression.

Graph and download economic data for Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005A) from 1987 to 2024 about net worth, Net, households, and USA.

The statistic above information on the net worth of U.S. American households before and after the Great Recession from 2003 to 2013, by percentile. In 2013, the median net worth of households, the **** percentile, stood at ****** U.S. dollars.

Graph and download economic data for Minimum Wealth Cutoff for the Top 0.1% (99.9th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLTP1311) from Q3 1989 to Q3 2022 about wealth, percentile, and USA.

As of November 2022, a combined value of **** trillion U.S. dollars was held by billionaires living in the United States. While U.S. billionaire wealth has seen a drop over the last year, it is still more than *** times the amount it was at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023, roughly 1.49 billion adults worldwide had a net worth of less than 10,000 U.S. dollars. By comparison, 58 million adults had a net worth of more than one million U.S. dollars in the same year. Wealth distribution The distribution of wealth is an indicator of economic inequality. The United Nations says that wealth includes the sum of natural, human, and physical assets. Wealth is not synonymous with income, however, because having a large income can be depleted if one has significant expenses. In 2023, nearly 1,700 billionaires had a total wealth between one to two billion U.S. dollars. Wealth worldwide China had the highest number of billionaires in 2023, with the United States following behind. That same year, New York had the most billionaires worldwide.

This statistic shows the median net worth of families in the United States from 1983 to 2013, by income tier. In 2013, middle class families had a median net worth of about 98,057 U.S. dollars.

This study defined middle class income households as those with an income between 67 and 200 percent of the U.S. median household income, after adjustment for household size. In 2014, the middle class income ranged from about 42,000 U.S. dollars to about 126,000 U.S. dollars per year for a three-person household.

Graph and download economic data for Households and Nonprofit Organizations; Net Worth as a Percentage of Disposable Personal Income, Level (HNONWPDPI) from Q4 1946 to Q1 2025 about net worth, disposable, nonprofit organizations, personal income, percent, Net, households, personal, income, and USA.

The massive wealth inequality in the world is underpinned by this chart: while *** percent of the world's population had fortunes of more than one million U.S. dollars in 2025, over ** percent of the global population had a total wealth of less than 10,000 U.S. dollars.

The total financial assets of households and nonprofit organizations in the United States grew steadily since 2000, albeit with some fluctuations. The value of household financial assets increased from around 34.34 trillion U.S. dollars in 2000 to around 130.38 trillion U.S. dollars in 2024.

This statistic shows a comparison of the median net worth of U.S. households in 1984 and 2009 for two age groups: young families, where the householder is younger than 35, and mostly retired households, where the householder is 65 or older. The median net worth of young households has decreased from 11,521 U.S. dollars in 1984 to 3,662 U.S. dollars in 2009.

Graph and download economic data for Quarterly Weighted Average of Total Assets for Commercial Banks Geographically Located in Federal Reserve District 2: New York (DISCONTINUED) (D2QWATA) from Q1 1984 to Q3 2020 about FRB NY District, commercial, assets, banks, depository institutions, and USA.

In Europe, the variation in average amounts of financial wealth per adult varied considerably as of 2022, from approximately ******* U.S. dollars in Switzerland to roughly ***** U.S. dollars in Azerbaijan. In Europe, the overall average financial wealth per adult as of 2022 was ****** U.S. dollars. In terms of private wealth, Europe held the second highest value in the world, after North America. What is financial wealth? Financial wealth, also known as financial assets or liquid assets can include wealth that an individual has in the forms of cash, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and bank deposits. In addition to financial wealth, wealth can also be measured in other assets, called non-financial wealth. This includes physical assets, such as real estate, land, vehicles, jewelry, and art, just to name a few. Where do most wealthy individuals live? Individuals with a net worth over *********** U.S. dollars are called high-net worth individuals (HNWI). The United States was the home country to the highest number of HNWIs in 2021. China followed, although their number of HNWIs did not even reach ********* of the number in the United States. In Europe, Switzerland is the country with the highest average financial wealth per adult, but with its small population size, the number of HNWIs does not come near the numbers in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy – the European countries with the highest number of HNWIs. Considering Switzerland’s small population size, however, it is the country in the world with the highest proportion of millionaires.