U.S. Mean Family Net Worth (Survey of Consumer Finances)

## What this measures

The mean net worth (assets minus debts) of all U.S. families, from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances. One reading per survey, every three years since 1989, in constant dollars of the newest survey year. The mean adds up every family's net worth and divides by the number of families, so the wealthiest families pull it far above the median.

## Why it matters

The survey is the most detailed public measure of what U.S. families own and owe. It is the benchmark for how much wealth a typical family holds and how that has moved across decades.

## How to read it

Dollars of the year the unit names. Compare surveys over the long run and compare age groups within a survey. Read with the median (wealth.scf.median_net_worth.all), which better describes a typical family. The age groups are in wealth.scf.mean_net_worth.*.

## What it does not say

A survey of a few thousand families, so every figure carries sampling error, wider for the smaller age groups. Net worth is assets minus debts as the family reports them: it leaves out defined-benefit pension promises and future Social Security. The age groups are by the age of the family's reference person (the Fed's "head"), not of every member. The survey runs every three years, so it shows long shifts, not the cycle between surveys. Each new survey restates every earlier one in its own dollars, so the levels change with each release; the unit names the dollar year.

## Source

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Survey of Consumer Finances, historical summary tables (internal data, constant dollars), Table 4. Public domain.