U.S. Median Family Net Worth · Head Under 35 (Survey of Consumer Finances)

## What this measures

The median net worth (assets minus debts) of families whose head is under 35, 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. Half of the families have more, half less.

## Why it matters

The survey is the most detailed public measure of what U.S. families own and owe. Wealth by age shows how families build wealth over a working life and draw it down in retirement, and how each age group has fared from one survey to the next.

## 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 mean (wealth.scf.mean_net_worth.under_35): a mean far above the median means wealth is concentrated near the top. All families: wealth.scf.median_net_worth.all.

## 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.