Where does your net worth really rank for your age?
Compare to Federal Reserve SCF 2022 and ONS Wealth Survey data. We use median, not mean, because mean net worth is deeply misleading.
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Salary percentile by age cohort.
What is the average net worth by age?
The most important thing to understand about net worth statistics is the difference between the mean and the median. The Federal Reserve SCF 2022 shows the mean household net worth in the US at $1,059,470. The median is $192,084. That $867,386 gap is not a rounding error, it is entirely driven by wealth concentration at the top. The top 10% of US households hold 67.2% of total household wealth. The mean is inflated by a small number of extremely wealthy households; the median reflects what a typical household actually has.
This distinction matters enormously for personal benchmarking. If you compare your net worth to the mean and find yourself below it, you have learned almost nothing useful, more than 60% of households are below the mean. The median is the honest benchmark.
| Age group | 25th percentile | Median (50th) | 75th percentile | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | $9,000 | $39,000 | $165,000 | $450,000 |
| 35–44 | $23,300 | $135,600 | $370,000 | $888,000 |
| 45–54 | $50,000 | $247,200 | $786,000 | $1,935,000 |
| 55–64 | $81,300 | $336,100 | $1,176,000 | $2,961,000 |
| 65+ | $92,300 | $409,400 | $1,273,000 | $3,258,000 |
Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022. Figures are household net worth, not individual. If you share finances with a partner, include your combined assets and debts. For the income side of the equation, our salary by age calculator shows how earnings typically peak and decline over a career.
UK average net worth by age
The ONS Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) Round 8 covers 2020–2022 and provides the most comprehensive picture of household wealth distribution in Great Britain. The overall median household wealth was £293,700. As with US data, mean household wealth (£565,200) is substantially higher due to concentration at the top.
| Age group (household reference person) | Median household wealth |
|---|---|
| 16–24 | £15,200 |
| 25–34 | £109,800 |
| 35–44 | £209,600 |
| 45–54 | £301,900 |
| 55–64 | £496,500 |
| 65–74 | £502,500 |
| 75+ | £373,100 |
UK wealth is heavily skewed toward two asset classes: property (approximately 40% of total household wealth) and private pensions (approximately 35%). This means homeowners and those with defined-benefit pension entitlements show dramatically higher net worth than renters of the same age and income. The divergence between homeowners and renters is one of the most significant wealth-distribution fault lines in the UK, widening across the WAS survey waves. Our savings calculator focuses specifically on liquid financial wealth, which tells a very different story from total net worth.
The decline in median wealth between 65–74 and 75+ reflects drawdown from savings and pensions in retirement, as well as the compositional effect of mortality removing higher-wealth households from the older cohort at a disproportionate rate relative to lower-wealth households.
Are Millennials really worse off than Boomers?
The narrative that Millennials are the first generation worse off than their parents is widespread but more complicated than it appears. The Federal Reserve’s Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA) data shows that US Millennials (born 1981–1996) had a median net worth of approximately $135,300 when measured at age 35–44 in 2022. Adjusting for inflation, Baby Boomers at the same age had a median of approximately $100,840. On that measure, Millennials are roughly 34% wealthier in real terms than Boomers were at the same life stage.
The generation that fared worst by this comparison is Generation X (born 1965–1980). Gen X entered their peak wealth-building years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, accumulated significant housing equity in the boom years, and then were severely derailed by the 2008 financial crisis. Many lost housing equity, retirement savings, or both. The GFC fell at exactly the wrong point in the Gen X wealth accumulation lifecycle.
Post-2020 asset price inflation dramatically accelerated wealth accumulation for younger Americans who already held assets. The Center for American Progress (2024) found that younger Americans’ wealth grew 101% between 2019 and 2023, driven by a combination of pandemic-era savings accumulation, rising equity markets, and housing price appreciation. This masks significant distributional inequality within the cohort: young homeowners and equity investors benefited enormously, while young renters with no investments saw their relative wealth position deteriorate.
The persistent disadvantage for Millennials relative to Boomers appears most clearly in housing. Homeownership rates for Millennials at age 30–34 are materially lower than for Boomers at the same age, and in high-cost cities the gap is stark. This has downstream effects on wealth accumulation, since housing has been the primary vehicle for middle-class wealth building in the US and UK for decades.
How does net worth grow over a lifetime?
The lifecycle model of wealth accumulation, developed by Modigliani and Brumberg (1954), describes a characteristic pattern: low or negative net worth in the 20s as individuals take on student debt and enter the workforce, rising through the 30s and 40s as mortgages are taken out and gradually repaid, pensions accumulate, and incomes peak, with wealth peaking just before retirement in the mid-60s, followed by a drawdown phase as households spend accumulated savings and pension balances.
Real-world data broadly confirms this pattern, with important modifications. Student debt has grown substantially, pushing the starting point lower. Housing price appreciation has added a windfall element that the original lifecycle model did not account for. The shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution pensions in the UK and US has transferred investment risk to individuals and created greater variance in late-career wealth outcomes.
The most consistent finding across both countries is that the wealth gap between households within an age group is far larger than the wealth gap between age groups. In other words, the 90th-to-50th percentile spread within the 45–54 bracket ($1,935,000 vs $247,200 in the US) is larger than the median difference between age groups. The primary determinants of where you land within your age group are career trajectory, inheritance and family transfers, housing market timing, and investment behaviour.
Frequently asked questions
Mean net worth is computed by dividing total household wealth by the number of households. When a small number of households hold extremely large amounts, the top 1% of US households hold approximately 30% of total wealth, the mean is pulled far above what a typical household has. More than 60% of US households have net worth below the mean. The mean is useful for macroeconomic analysis (total wealth in the economy) but is a poor benchmark for individual comparison. The median is the correct comparison point: it is the net worth of the household right in the middle of the distribution.
The SCF 2022 median net worth for households under 35 is $39,000, so $100,000 at age 30 places you comfortably above the median for your age group, in approximately the 60th–65th percentile range. The 75th percentile for under-35 households is $165,000. Whether $100,000 is “good” depends on your specific circumstances: if you are a homeowner who recently bought with a large mortgage, your assets (the property) are high but your net worth (assets minus mortgage) may be modest. If you have $100,000 in liquid savings and investments at 30 with no significant debt, that represents genuinely strong financial positioning.
In the Federal Reserve SCF methodology, net worth includes the present value of defined-contribution pension accounts (401k, IRA) and an imputed value for defined-benefit pensions. In the ONS WAS, private pension wealth (including defined-benefit entitlements valued as a present value of future income) is included and is one of the largest components of UK household wealth. For the purposes of this calculator, you should include the current balance of any pension pots, ISAs, or retirement accounts you have. For defined-benefit pensions, a rough approach is to multiply your expected annual pension by 20 as a present-value approximation.
The SCF defines net worth as total assets minus total liabilities at the household level. Assets include: financial assets (checking and savings accounts, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement accounts), non-financial assets (primary residence and other real estate, vehicles, business equity, other property), and other assets. Liabilities include: mortgages, home equity loans, vehicle loans, student loans, credit card balances, and other debt. Notably, Social Security and Medicare entitlements are not included in the SCF wealth measure, even though they represent significant economic value for many households. Including their present value would increase median net worth figures substantially, particularly for older households.
According to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (Federal Reserve, 2023), median net worth by age of household head is approximately: under 35, $39,000; 35 to 44, $135,600; 45 to 54, $247,200; 55 to 64, $364,500; 65 to 74, $409,900; 75 and older, $335,600. These figures reflect a steady accumulation through working years followed by a drawdown in retirement. The median is far more representative than the mean, which is pulled upward dramatically by the wealthiest households in each age group.
No. Net worth is the total value of everything you own minus everything you owe. Savings (cash in bank accounts) is just one component. The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances includes home equity, retirement accounts, investment portfolios, business ownership, and vehicles on the asset side, minus mortgages, student loans, credit card debt, and other liabilities. For most American households, home equity is the single largest component of net worth, not liquid savings.
The 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances reports the median net worth for households headed by someone under 35 at about $39,000. A common rule of thumb popularised by Fidelity Investments suggests having one times your annual salary saved by 30, but this focuses only on retirement savings, not total net worth. Context matters: someone with $50,000 in student loan debt and $60,000 in retirement savings has a different financial picture from someone with no debt and $10,000 in cash. The data shows wide variation within any age group.
The Federal Reserve's Distributional Financial Accounts show that roughly 10% to 15% of US households have zero or negative net worth, meaning their debts exceed their assets. Among households headed by someone under 35, the share with negative net worth is closer to 20%, largely driven by student loan debt. A 2024 analysis by the Center for American Progress found that Black and Hispanic households are disproportionately represented in the negative net worth category due to historical wealth gaps and disparities in homeownership rates.
- Federal Reserve. (2023). Survey of Consumer Finances 2022
- Office for National Statistics. (2023). Wealth and Assets Survey Round 8, 2020–2022
- Federal Reserve. Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA)
- Center for American Progress. (2024). Wealth of Younger Americans