Net worth percentile

Percentiles describe wealth distributions far better than averages do, because wealth has a long right tail. In the 2022 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, mean US family net worth was $1,063,700 while the median was $192,900 — the mean sits above roughly three-quarters of families, pulled up by the top of the distribution. Quoting the mean to somebody as a benchmark tells them they are behind a number almost nobody has.

Percentiles are always relative to a specific population and a specific definition. A 90th-percentile figure for all US households is a different number from a 90th-percentile figure for US households under 35, and both differ from the British equivalent — partly because the countries are different and partly because their statistics offices count wealth differently.

Age is the largest single confounder. Net worth accumulates over a working life, so comparing a 28-year-old to the all-ages distribution measures how old they are more than how they are doing. Per the 2022 SCF, median US family net worth is $39,000 under 35 and $364,500 for 55 to 64 — nearly a tenfold difference driven mostly by time.