Original Coverage & Source Attribution: finance.yahoo.com
Quick Read
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Americans 75+ now lead all age groups in net worth with a median of $504,900, up 37% from 2022, driven by rising retirement account values.
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Families under 35 saw median net worth collapse 23% to $33,000 as pandemic-era business equity gains fully reversed between 2022 and 2025.
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The share of families behind on loan payments surged from 12% to nearly 20%, even as older Americans’ wealth helped prop up consumer spending.
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Families aged 75 or older had the largest net worth of any age group in the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances. That places them “exceeding levels by families that are nearly or recently retired,” according to the Fed’s report Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025.
In this column, “richest” means one specific thing: the highest median and mean net worth, which is assets minus debts. The Fed says the result came “in contrast with the previous few survey years.” The figures describe family balance sheets at the time of the 2025 survey interviews, and every dollar amount is adjusted for inflation into 2025 dollars. Treat it as a snapshot of 2025, not a live reading.
What “Largest Net Worth” Means in the Fed’s Data
The Fed has run the modern version of this survey every three years since 1989. A family’s age is the age of its reference person, and the oldest group is listed as “75 or more” in the report’s tables. Net worth is “the difference between families’ gross assets and their liabilities,” measured on the interview date.
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The oldest group led on both measures. Its median net worth was $504,900, compared with $431,300 for families aged 65–74 and $411,900 for those aged 55–64. Its mean was $1,962,200, inching past the 65–74 group’s $1,897,600. From 2022 to 2025, median net worth for families older than 75 rose 37% and mean net worth rose 10%.
So why the jump? The obvious guess is that more people simply joined the group. The group’s share of all families did rise, from 12.0% in 2022 to 13.4% in 2025. The Fed looked at that and found the gain was “primarily driven by an increase in the value of retirement accounts.” It adds that “retirement income growth seems to play a key role.” Income tells the same story: median income for the oldest families rose 24% between the two surveys.
Story Continues
How Retirees Passed the Nearly Retired
In the 2022 survey, families aged 65–74 ranked first, with a median of $448,600 and a mean of $1,963,900. The oldest group trailed at $367,300 and $1,777,400. The lead changed hands because both groups moved. The 65–74 group’s median fell 4% and its mean fell 3%, while the oldest families pulled ahead.
Compared with all families, the move stands out. Overall median net worth rose 2% to $215,900, and the mean rose 7% to $1,241,500. The oldest group has also been getting bigger for years. Its share of families went from 10.7% in 2010 to 11.3% in 2019, then to 13.4% in 2025.
Why Families Under 75 Should Pay Attention
The youngest families went the other way. Families younger than 35 saw median net worth fall 23% to $33,000, and mean net worth fall 33% to $135,400. The Fed attributes those losses mainly to “the unwinding of business equity gains between 2019 and 2022.” In plain terms, gains younger families made in businesses they owned during the pandemic years mostly reversed.
What separated the two groups was the asset that carried each one. Older families leaned on retirement accounts, built up over decades of contributions and market growth. That habit is spreading to younger savers. Among families with a reference person aged 64 or younger, retirement plan participation reached 65.1% in 2025, up from 64.4% in 2022. In the youngest group, participation in defined contribution plans (such as 401(k)s) and IRAs rose from 42% in 2016 to near 50% in 2025.
If you want to see what that kind of regular contribution habit can produce over a working career, plug your own numbers into the model below.
Older families’ wealth also matters to everyone else’s economy. Coverage after the release has focused on how older Americans’ wealth may be helping keep consumer spending strong. Meanwhile, the same survey found that the share of families behind on loan payments sharply increased from about 12% to almost 20%. In 2025, a large share of household spending power sat with the oldest families while more families overall struggled to keep up with their debts.
Bottom Line
In the 2025 survey, families aged 75 or older ranked first in both median and mean net worth. The Fed attributes the gain mainly to rising retirement account values, with growth in retirement income also playing a key role. Younger families lost ground as earlier business equity gains reversed. Regular, long-term retirement saving is what raised the oldest families to the top of the 2025 results, though a large pre-tax balance eventually becomes a large taxable withdrawal, a catch we walked through in a free guide to defusing the first-year RMD tax bomb.
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