U.S. households saw income and wealth gains between 2022 and 2025 alongside a sharp rise in financial stress. According to a Federal Reserve survey released in October 2026, the share of families behind on loan payments jumped to nearly 20%, hitting levels not seen since the 2010 survey.
The triennial Survey of Consumer Finances captures a period of transition as the economy moved beyond the immediate volatility of the COVID-19 pandemic toward modest wage gains and a large run-up in stock market wealth. While inflation-adjusted average net worth climbed 7% to $1.24 million and median net worth edged up 2% to $215,900, the broader gains were unevenly distributed across age brackets, income tiers, and racial lines.
Older Americans Lead Wealth Gains While Young Families Face Declines
Generational divides widened significantly over the three-year period. Households headed by someone aged 75 or older claimed the highest median net worth of any age group, reaching $504,000 in 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve. That demographic also recorded a 24% increase in median annual income, rising to $67,000, alongside a 10% rise in average wealth to $1.96 million.
The oldest Americans benefited directly from robust stock market performance. Between the end of 2022 and 2025, the S&P 500 gained about 78%, lifting retirement assets and pushing the number of Fidelity 401(k) accounts with at least $1 million to a record 769,000. Overall stock market participation dropped slightly from 58% in 2022 to 56% in 2025, with families in the lower half of the income distribution responsible for nearly all of that retreat from the market, even though median stock holdings among families owning stocks jumped 36% to $77,400.
By contrast, households headed by someone younger than 35 saw their median net worth plunge 23% to $33,000. The Federal Reserve attributed much of the younger group’s decline to the reversal of earlier gains in privately held businesses.
Surging Loan Delinquencies and Rising Debt Stress Across Households
Even as overall wealth metrics ticked upward, mounting liabilities strained household budgets. The central bank reported that the proportion of families falling behind on loan payments at the end of 2025 jumped from about 12% in the prior survey to nearly 20%, specifically 19.6%.
Those behind by two months or more accelerated from 5% in 2022 to more than 8%. The report noted that families were more likely to fall behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey, which followed the Great Recession—an economic crisis lasting from December 2007 to June 2009 during which the unemployment rate hit 10%.
High inflation and aggressive interest rate hikes implemented by the central bank in 2022 and 2023 hammered borrowers. Average credit card interest rates climbed from 14.6% to 21.4%, the median debt payment-to-income ratio rose 2 percentage points to 15.4%, and the total debt-to-income ratio climbed from 89.4% to 94.9%. Furthermore, a larger share of families, standing at 8.6% versus 6.5% in 2022, had debt payments eating up more than 40% of their income, marking the highest reading since the 2013 survey.
“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey.”
Federal Reserve researchers, Survey of Consumer Finances
Shifting Income Inequality and the K-Shaped Asset Divide
The survey revealed a surprising countertrend in income distribution.
Conversely, average real income for families in the top 10% of earners fell 14% to $652,000 from $757,000. Federal Reserve researchers explained that top earners often rely on volatile sources such as capital gains and business income, creating outsized movements in averages when those streams fluctuate.
While income gaps narrowed slightly, wealth disparities persisted along a K-shaped trajectory. Median wealth among the richest 10% rose 19% from $4.15 million to $4.94 million, while the median net worth of the richest one-tenth soared 31% to $3.6 million. Meanwhile, the poorest 25% saw their median net worth drop from $3,800 to $1,700, reflecting broader racial gaps where the median wealth for Black families dropped 25% and Black Americans held one-seventh the wealth of White Americans.
