Net Worth Percentile Calculator

All numbers come from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the gold-standard US wealth distribution dataset. The Fed runs the SCF every three years, oversampling high-net-worth households so the right tail of the distribution is captured (most consumer surveys miss it). The most recent full release is the 2022 wave, published in October 2023. The next wave, SCF 2025, will publish in late 2026. This calculator uses the published percentile-to-net-worth tables by age of household head, in 2022 dollars.

From the SCF 2022, median household net worth runs roughly $39,000 under age 35, $135,600 for ages 35 to 44, $247,200 for ages 45 to 54, $364,300 for ages 55 to 64, $410,000 for ages 65 to 74, and $334,700 for households 75 and older. The all-ages median is about $192,700. Net worth peaks in the late 60s, then drifts down as retirees spend savings and home equity. These are medians, not averages: averages are pulled far higher by the top 1%, which is why the median is the better honest measure of a typical household.

Three reasons stack up. First, most young adults have not had time to accumulate retirement balances. Second, student loan debt is a powerful drag: the SCF reports about 33% of under-35 households carry negative net worth, often because federal and private student loans exceed any meaningful asset base. Third, homeownership rates are lowest in this age band, so the largest single asset most American households eventually hold (home equity) is not yet on the balance sheet. A 28-year-old with $0 in assets and $25,000 in student loans is at roughly the 10th to 15th percentile for the age group, not the bottom.

In SCF 2022 dollars, the top 1% threshold across all US households is roughly $13.7 million in net worth. The top 0.1% requires far more. The threshold rises with age (top 1% for ages 55 to 64 is around $19.8 million; for under-35 households it is about $2.4 million) because wealth concentrates as careers, equity stakes, and inheritances compound. The top 1% holds about 30% of total US household wealth; the bottom 50% holds about 2.5%. These thresholds also climb fast over time: the 2019 SCF top 1% threshold was around $11.1 million, so the 2025 wave is likely to publish a higher number.

Net worth in the SCF is total household assets minus total household liabilities at a single point in time. Assets include the primary residence and other real estate at market value, retirement accounts (401(k), IRA, pensions valued at cash-out), brokerage and bank balances, vehicles, business equity, and cash-value life insurance. Liabilities include mortgage balances, student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, and other consumer debt. The SCF does NOT include the actuarial value of future Social Security benefits or defined-benefit pension income streams (those are projected income, not assets you can sell). It also does not subtract future income taxes on traditional 401(k) and IRA balances, so pre-tax retirement balances are counted at face value.