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Household Finance · October 22, 2026 · 2 min read

Fed's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances: median net worth up 2% to $215,900, debt-service strain at 2013 levels

By Econ Data Tools Editorial Team

Published October 22, 2026 • Updated October 22, 2026

Reviewed by Instinct source QC

The Fed's triennial SCF, released October 9, shows real median family net worth of $215,900 (+2% since 2022), mean of $1.24M (+7%), median income +7% to $82,200 with mean income down 6%, homeownership steady at 66%, and families spending over 40% of income on debt up to 8.6% - highest since the 2013 survey.

The Federal Reserve released the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances on October 9, 2026, the triennial deep read on household balance sheets, showing real median family net worth up 2 percent from 2022 to $215,900 and real mean net worth up 7 percent to $1.24 million. Income moved in the opposite direction at the tails: real median family income rose 7 percent between surveys to $82,200, while real mean income fell 6 percent to $145,200, with declines concentrated at the upper ends of the income and net worth distributions and modest increases at the lower ends. Housing remained the middle-class anchor. The homeownership rate held at 66 percent, and median net housing value for owners rose to $230,000 from $218,900 in 2022. Stock market participation slipped from 58 to 56 percent of families, though conditional median stock holdings grew 36 percent to $77,400. The pressure point in the survey is debt service. The share of families devoting more than 40 percent of income to debt payments rose from 6.5 percent to 8.6 percent, a level last seen in the 2013 survey, even as the share of families carrying any debt held steady at 77 percent and median and mean debt outstanding were unchanged from 2022. Retirement plan participation edged up to around 65 percent, with mean and median balances higher for families holding account-type plans. For rate-watchers, the SCF's message is distributional rather than cyclical: aggregate household wealth is higher than three years ago, but the rising share of families under heavy debt-service strain is the vulnerability the FOMC's restrictive stance is pressing on. The survey was conducted for the Board by NORC across 119 geographic areas.

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