Graph and download economic data for Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005Q) from Q4 1987 to Q2 2025 about net worth, Net, households, 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.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Top 0.1% (99.9th to 100th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLTP1246) from Q3 1989 to Q2 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Net Worth Held by the Bottom 50% (1st to 50th Wealth Percentiles) (WFRBLB50107) from Q3 1989 to Q2 2025 about net worth, wealth, percentile, Net, and USA.

In the first quarter of 2025, almost ********** of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest ** percent of earners only owned *** 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 2024, *** 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 *** 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 Households; Net Worth, Level (BOGZ1FL192090005A) from 1987 to 2024 about net worth, Net, households, and USA.

The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is normally a triennial cross-sectional survey of U.S. families. The survey data include information on families' balance sheets, pensions, income, and demographic characteristics.

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.

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.

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 90th to 99th Wealth Percentiles (WFRBLN09304) from Q3 1989 to Q3 2022 about wealth, percentile, and USA.

This table contains 58320 series, with data for years 1999 - 2016 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years). This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (20 items: Canada; Atlantic; Newfoundland and Labrador; Prince Edward Island; ...); Assets and debts (27 items: Total assets; Private pension assets; Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs), Locked-in Retirement Accounts (LIRAs) and other; Employer-sponsored Registered Pension Plans (EPPs); ...); Net worth quintiles (6 items: Total, all net worth quintiles; Lowest net worth quintile; Second net worth quintile; Middle net worth quintile; ...); Statistics (6 items: Total values; Percentage of total assets or total debts; Number holding asset or debt; Percentage holding asset or debt; ...); Confidence intervals (3 items: Estimate; Lower bound of a 95% confidence interval; Upper bound of a 95% confidence interval).

This graph shows the median wealth of US lawmakers in Congress from 2008 to 2018, for both chambers. In 2018, the median wealth in the Senate amounted to 1.76 million U.S. dollars.

In 2024, Switzerland led the ranking of countries with the highest average wealth per adult, with approximately ******* U.S. dollars per person. The United States was ranked second with an average wealth of around ******* U.S. dollars per adult, followed by Hong Kong SAR. However, the figures do not show the actual distribution of wealth. The Gini index shows wealth disparities in countries worldwide. Does wealth guarantee a longer life? As the adage goes, “money can’t buy you happiness,” yet wealth and income are continuously correlated to the quality of life of individuals in different countries around the world. While greater levels of wealth may not guarantee a higher quality of life, it certainly increases an individual’s chances of having a longer one. Although they do not show the whole picture, life expectancy at birth is higher in the wealthier world regions. Does money bring happiness? A number of the world’s happiest nations also feature in the list of those countries for which average income was highest. Finland, however, which was the happiest country worldwide in 2022, is missing from the list of the top twenty countries with the highest wealth per adult. As such, the explanation for this may be the fact that a larger proportion of the population has access to a high-income relative to global levels. Measures of quality of life Criticism of the use of income or wealth as a proxy for quality of life led to the creation of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. Although income is included within the index, it also has other factors taken into account, such as health and education. As such, the countries with the highest human development index can be correlated to those with the highest income levels. That said, none of the above measures seek to assess the physical and mental environmental impact of a high quality of life sourced through high incomes. The happy planet index demonstrates that the inclusion of experienced well-being and ecological footprint in place of income and other proxies for quality of life results in many of the world’s materially poorer nations being included in the happiest.

United States US: General Government: Net Worth data was reported at -4,998.205 USD bn in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of -5,108.220 USD bn for 2016. United States US: General Government: Net Worth data is updated yearly, averaging -775.727 USD bn from Dec 2001 (Median) to 2017, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,008.897 USD bn in 2007 and a record low of -5,108.220 USD bn in 2016. United States US: General Government: Net Worth data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by International Monetary Fund. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.IMF.IFS: Government Finance: Balance Sheet: Annual.

Income, consumption and wealth (ICW) statistics are experimental statistics computed by Eurostat through the statistical matching of three data sources: the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the Household Budget Survey (HBS) and the Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). These statistics enable us to observe at the same time the income that households receive, their expenditures and their accumulated wealth.

The annual collection of EU-SILC was launched in 2003 and is governed by Regulation 1700/2019 (previously: Regulation 1177/2003) of the European Parliament and of the Council. The EU-SILC collects cross-sectional and longitudinal information on income. HBS is a survey conducted every 5 years on the basis of an agreement between Eurostat, the Member States and EFTA countries. Data are collected using national questionnaires and, in most cases, expenditure diaries that respondents are asked to keep over a certain period of time. HFCS collects information on assets, liabilities, and to a limited extent income and consumption, of households. The survey is run by National Central Banks and coordinated by the European Central Bank.

This page focuses on the main issues of importance for the use and interpretation of ICW statistics. Information on the primary data sources can be found on the respective EU-SILC and HBS metadata pages and following the links provided in the sections 'related metadata' and 'annexes' below.

Experimental ICW statistics cover six topics: household economic resources, affordability of essential services, saving rates, poverty, household characteristics and taxation. Each topic contains several indicators with a number of different breakdowns, mainly by income quantile, by the age group of the household reference person, by household type, by the educational attainment level of the reference person, by the activity status of the reference person and by the degree of urbanization of the household. The indicators provide information on the joint distribution of income, consumption and wealth and the links between these three economic dimensions. They help to describe households' economic vulnerability and material well-being. They also help to explain the dynamics of wealth inequalities.

All indicators are to be understood to describe households, not persons. Breakdowns by age group, educational attainment level and activity status refer to the household reference person, which is the person with the highest income. The only exception are the tables icw_pov_01, icw_pov_10, icw_pov_11 and icw_pov_12 for which the income, consumption and wealth of households have been equivalised such that equal shares were attributed to each household member. Values in tables icw_aff are calculated for households reporting non-zero values only.

Note on table icw _res_01 and icw_res_02: The indicator “Households” [HH] in icw_res_01 shows the share of households in the selection, which hold the corresponding shares of total disposable income [INC_DISP], consumption expenditure [EXPN_CONS] and net wealth [WLTH_NET] of the entire population. In theory, turning two of the three dimensions [quant_inc, quant_expn, quant_wlth] to TOTAL and the third one to any quintile, should result into a share of 20% of households. Nevertheless, this share is often below or above 20% of the total population of households in the country. The reason for this is that our figures are based on sample surveys. This means that the share of households corresponds indeed to 20% of households in the sample, however when we multiply each household of the sample with its sampling weight, the resulting shares of households in the total population differ from the 20%. If, for example, we disregard the income and wealth of households in our sample, the first consumption quintile contains the 20% of households with lowest consumption in the sample. However, multiplying this selection of households with their corresponding sampling weights may result into a different share of the total population. The “Households” [HH] indicator indicates the real share of households in the population that make up the theoretical quintile.

Graph and download economic data for Real Median Personal Income in the United States (MEPAINUSA672N) from 1974 to 2024 about personal income, personal, median, income, real, and USA.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset presents the distribution of median household income among distinct age brackets of householders in United States. Based on the latest 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates from the American Community Survey, it displays how income varies among householders of different ages in United States. It showcases how household incomes typically rise as the head of the household gets older. The dataset can be utilized to gain insights into age-based household income trends and explore the variations in incomes across households.

Key observations: Insights from 2023

In terms of income distribution across age cohorts, in United States, householders within the 45 to 64 years age group have the highest median household income at $94,847, followed by those in the 25 to 44 years age group with an income of $87,575. Meanwhile householders within the 65 years and over age group report the second lowest median household income of $57,108. Notably, householders within the under 25 years age group, had the lowest median household income at $43,534.

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates. All incomes have been adjusting for inflation and are presented in 2023-inflation-adjusted dollars.

Age groups classifications include:

• Under 25 years
• 25 to 44 years
• 45 to 64 years
• 65 years and over

Variables / Data Columns

• Age Of The Head Of Household: This column presents the age of the head of household
• Median Household Income: Median household income, in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars for the specific age group

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for United States median household income by age. You can refer the same here