Fed survey shows median family net worth up 2 percent and financial stress rising

The Federal Reserve Board released the results of its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, which the Board said provides the public and policymakers with detailed insights into the economic condition of American families¹. The dataset was published on Friday morning⁴.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Fed study found overall median net worth rose 2 percent between 2022 and 2025, and that the typical American family got a little wealthier in the years following the pandemic while well-off and older Americans got much richer⁵.

The income picture ran the other way at the top. Axios reported that the median American family’s income rose 7 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, and that middle and lower earners’ inflation-adjusted incomes rose during the Biden years while high earners saw their incomes fall⁴. The ABA Banking Journal reported the survey finding an increase in family income and in financial stress together⁶.

Why it matters to investors

Axios noted that the survey speaks to a much-contested question, what happened to Americans’ real incomes in a period that featured an exceptionally tight job market and the highest inflation in decades, followed by aggressive Fed rate hikes⁴. The answer it reports, compression at the top and gains in the middle, cuts against the usual reading of that period.

Two findings temper it. Net worth rose far less than income over the window, at 2 percent against 7 percent^4,5, so the gains were earned rather than accumulated. And the income increase came with more financial stress, not less⁶, which is what one would expect if higher nominal pay was running behind the prices households actually face.

The distribution is also the point for anyone modelling consumption. The Journal’s finding that well-off and older Americans got much richer concentrates the spending capacity in the households most exposed to asset prices⁵.

What to watch

Two accompanying Fed research notes point to what the headline numbers miss. One examines informal support networks, the interpersonal connections through which families provide or receive financial and practical assistance, which the authors call a critical but often invisible component of the US economy that can serve many of the same functions as wealth, shaping decisions on saving, spending and labour supply and providing a buffer against adverse shocks².

The other addresses a measurement gap: the United States has long lacked comprehensive household spending data across all types of households, because sources built to measure spending routinely miss the highest-income and wealthiest households, while sources that cover the full distribution of income and wealth lack comprehensive spending measures³. Any conclusion drawn about consumption from this survey rests on that caveat³.