Key Takeaways From The Fed’s 2025 Survey Of Consumer Finances
In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, median income and net worth increased, but the ability of families to keep up with their debts worsened, a new study has revealed.
The Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances was released on Friday. Using a representative sample of U.S. families from across the financial and demographic spectrum, the study tracks what U.S. families own, earn, owe and borrow.
The survey also tracks developments in wealth (net worth) and income inequality, and showed that while the income of the less affluent improved, wealth increases were concentrated more among the top 10 percent of earners, a new study has revealed.
Wealth
In the 2022-2025 period, real median net worth rose by two percent to $215,900, whereas real mean net worth rose to $1,241,500, a seven percent increase.
Wealth gains were much more moderate than they were during the pandemic years, when median wealth rose by more than 35 percent and mean net worth rose by more than 20 percent.
This discrepancy is likely attributable to the abundance of federal interventions which occurred during the pandemic years, when the U.S. government issued stimulus checks, massively expanded unemployment benefits and introduced the paycheck protection program.
Most families across the middle and upper net worth and income distributions experienced increases in median and mean wealth.
However, the wealth of the bottom 20 percent of earners was hard hit between 2022 and 2025, as their median and mean net worths declined six and four percent respectively.
The top 10 percent, by contrast, posted gains of 31 percent in median net worth and six percent in mean net worth, demonstrating how stock market gains have made the wealthiest Americans even wealthier.
Racial and age-related data also revealed significant increases in elderly wealth and notable decreases in the wealth of African-American families.
Median wealth for black families, which increased by a factor of 60 percent between 2019 and 2022, decreased by 25 percent in the 2022-2025 period. Median wealth improved for all other racial demographics in the same period
Similarly, all demographics, including non-Hispanic African Americans, saw their mean wealth increase. However, the mean wealth increases of black families – five percent – were lower than all other racial demographics.
Families whose “age of reference person”, or main member, was older than 75 saw the largest median net worth gains (37 percent). By contrast, families whose main member was 35 or under posted losses of 23 percent in median net worth and losses of 33 percent in mean net worth.
Housing
The homeownership rate, which stood at 65.6 percent in 2025 and 66.1 percent in 2022, has not changed significantly.
However, housing affordability remained static at near-record low levels, as the median nominal home value remained higher than median nominal family income by a factor of 4.5 throughout all three years despite income gains. According to this metric, houses have become significantly less affordable since the turn of the century.
In 2001, the median home value was approximately three times higher than the median family income. This ratio has steadily increased since 2016, when it stood at 3.5 after the global financial crisis.
Housing affordability has also worsened since 2025, with Freddie Mac reporting that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.4 percent on Thursday, the highest level since November 2023.
Median house prices also rose to an all-time high of $440,600 in July of this year, a 1.8 percent increase compared to 2025, according to the National Association of Realtors. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that, as of 2025, American median household income was $87,460.
According to this more recent data, housing affordability has worsened since the survey was conducted, as the latest house price figures are over five times higher than the latest median income statistics.
Debt
The ability of families to stay current on their debt worsened in the 2022-2025 period, reaching lows not seen since the immediate aftermath of the financial crash, the Fed’s data showed.
“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” the 2025 survey revealed, with the proportion of families reporting being behind on loan payments increasing from 12 to 20 percent.
The proportion of families with any sort of debt remained static at about 77 percent, with median and mean debt outstanding remaining unchanged between 2022 and 2025.
However, the proportion of families with debt payment-to-income ratios above 40 percent increased from 6.5 to 8.6 percent, a figure which represented a 12-year high.
These changes occurred against a backdrop of “elevated inflation,” as consumer prices rose at an annual average pace of 3.6 percent, which may explain the increased “financial stress” documented in the survey.
The proportion of families with student debt was 20 percent in 2025, compared to 22 percent in 2022. This may have been a consequence of the cancellation of student loans for over five million Americans which occurred under the administration of former President Joe Biden.
Income
Real median family income, which was measured the year before the survey, increased by seven percent between 2021 and 2024 to $82,200, while real mean family income dropped six percent to $145,200.
Families in the lower ends of the income distributions saw small increases in median and mean income, with the bottom 20 percent of earners registering increases of four percent in median income and eight percent in mean income.
The top 10 percent of earners registered decreases of six percent in median income and 14 percent of mean income.
The same trend was observed across the net worth distribution, as the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans recorded decreases of six percent and 17 percent in median and mean incomes. The least wealthy 25 percent, on the other hand, saw both their median and mean incomes increase by three percent.
