Why is the data per household instead of per person?

Because wealth can only be measured that way — a couple's house, joint accounts, and shared savings belong to both people, so no official per-person wealth statistics exist. That's also why this calculator offers a singles vs. couples comparison: a single person measured against all households is partly being compared with two-earner couples, which reads unfairly low.

Why compare against the median instead of the average?

Wealth data is extremely top-skewed: a small number of enormous fortunes drag every average far above what a typical household actually has. The median — the exact middle household — is the honest anchor, which is why averages in headlines often make people feel inexplicably behind.

Where does the data come from?

The Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, the definitive triennial study of U.S. household wealth. The percentile curves here are computed directly from the Fed's public-use microdata as survey-weighted quantiles by age bracket and household type.

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Net Worth Percentile by Age

Q: What counts as net worth?

Everything you own minus everything you owe, the way the Federal Reserve measures it: investments, retirement accounts, bank accounts, home equity, vehicles and business interests, minus mortgages, loans, and card balances. Home equity is included — leaving your house out would understate your rank against this data.

See where you stand against U.S. households your age — overall, or against just singles or just couples (a comparison most tools can't make). Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

Your age

Household net worth

Compare against

Your percentile

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Among all households

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Among singles

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Among couples

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Median for your group

Top 25% starts at

Top 10% starts at

The shape of the curve

Worth knowing: wealth data is heavily top-skewed — a few enormous households drag every average far above the median, which is why headlines about "the average American's net worth" make almost everyone feel behind. This tool anchors on medians, the honest middle. All values are in 2022 dollars — the latest survey the Fed has published.

What counts as net worth here

Everything you own minus everything you owe, measured the way the Federal Reserve measures it: investment and retirement accounts, bank balances, home equity, vehicles, and business interests — minus mortgages, student loans, auto loans, and card balances. Home equity is included. People sometimes exclude their house to be conservative, but this data doesn't, so leaving it out would understate your rank.

Why "per household" — and why the singles vs. couples toggle matters

No official per-person wealth statistics exist, because wealth genuinely can't be measured per person: a couple's house, joint brokerage, and shared savings belong to both of them. Every net worth percentile you'll find anywhere is a household number.

That creates a quiet unfairness in most percentile tools: a single 35-year-old is being ranked against a pool that includes two-earner couples with pooled assets, so their percentile reads lower than a fair peer comparison — and a couple's reads a touch high. The toggle above fixes that. Compared against singles only, the same net worth typically ranks meaningfully higher; the gap between the two views is often 15–25 percentile points in the middle of the distribution.

Where the numbers come from

The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances (2022) — the definitive triennial study of U.S. household wealth, built specifically to measure the full distribution (it deliberately over-samples wealthy households so the top tail is credible). The percentile curves on this page are computed directly from the Fed's public-use microdata as survey-weighted quantiles, by age bracket and household type. "Couples" are households where the head is married or living with a partner; "singles" are everyone else — including divorced and widowed heads of household, who count as "single" here.

Methodology fine print

Curves are weighted quantiles at every 5th percentile (plus the 99th) across 13 age brackets from 18–24 to 80+, using the SCF's household weights over all five imputation replicates. Your placement is linearly interpolated between the two nearest known percentiles and capped at "top 1%" and "bottom 5%" — beyond those points survey data gets too thin to slice finer. One cell worth flagging: couples aged 18–24 are rare in the sample (~37 households), so young-couple placements are approximate. Values are 2022 dollars; the next survey (collected 2025) publishes around late 2026–2027, and this page will be refreshed when it does.

How to read your number

A percentile is context, not a verdict. It tells you where you sit in a snapshot of one year of American life — it doesn't know your city's cost of living, your career stage, an inheritance someone else received, or the student loans you're systematically clearing. Two honest readings:

If you're above the median for your group, you're ahead of most households your age — and the right next question isn't "how do I rank higher," it's whether your own plan (retirement age, spending, savings rate) actually works.

If you're below the median, remember what medians hide: this includes households who never had your income, your savings habit, or your timeline. Direction beats position — a below-median net worth growing every year beats an above-median one shrinking.

Common questions

Is my number good for my age?

The chart above answers where you rank; whether it's "good" depends on what your life requires. Fidelity's widely-cited rule of thumb runs 1× income by 30, 3× by 40, 6× by 50, 10× by 67 — but yardsticks like these are population averages, not targets for your situation. Ranking against neighbors is trivia — funding your own retirement is the assignment.

Should I include my home?

For this comparison, yes — the Fed's data includes home equity, so excluding yours would misplace you. For retirement planning, treat home equity separately: you can't spend the house you live in without selling or borrowing against it.

Why do singles rank so differently from the overall numbers?

Because the overall pool is mostly couples (roughly 60% of households), and couples hold pooled, often two-income wealth. The median couple in their 50s holds several times the net worth of the median single the same age. Comparing yourself against your actual household type is the fairer read.

My percentile seems low. Is this data even right?

The usual surprise runs the other way — medians are far lower than most people expect (the median household aged 25–29 holds about $30k). If your number still feels off, check that you included home equity and retirement accounts, and that you're comparing your household's total, not just your own accounts.

Knowing where you stand is step one

Step two is a plan that works regardless of anyone else's number. Tesserae tracks your real net worth over time, scores your financial health across ten factors, and models your retirement — taxes, Social Security, and the odds your money actually lasts. Privacy-first: you enter your own numbers, and we never touch your bank login.

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