net worth

American Retirement Savings by Age: Averages, Medians and Percentiles

Economics April 2, 2018 by PK

Unfortunately, most people aren’t on track to save a significant amount of money for retirement. Depending on how you do the math, 32-61 year old households averaged around $120,809.40 in retirement savings.

Age, of course, matters. Using a very strict definition, households headed by 30-34 year olds averaged $24,254.48 in retirement savings with a median of $700. Households in the final retirement stretch headed by a 60-64 year old averaged $229,101.05 with a median of $16,000.

With an expansive definition allowing other liquid sources, 30-34 year old households averaged $43,162.14 with a median of $6,500. Households headed by someone aged 60-64 averaged $564,326.54 with a median of $39,000.

Retirement Savings by Age for American Households

As we discussed in our last article on American retirement savings, accounting for ‘retirement savings’ can be tricky.

First, we estimate savings based on a strict definition of earmarked retirement savings to approximate the Economic Policy Institute’s methodology in their retirement report.

We also calculate a second expansive number which includes other liquid wealth:

Savings accounts,
Stocks
Bonds
Other investments which could be sold and spent in retirement

Strictly Earmarked Retirement Savings by Age

Strict savings are savings which are earmarked in retirement accounts or pensions. More specifically, we use the SCF macro variable RETQLIQ.

This category includes assets like IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and company, group, or union pensions.

Strict Retirement Savings by Age in the US in 2016

Strict Retirement Savings Definition
Age Range	Average	Median	90th Percentile
18-24	$2,963.15	$0.00	$5,300.00
25-29	$8,210.14	$0.00	$23,700.00
30-34	$24,254.48	$700.00	$65,000.00
35-39	$44,649.91	$2,600.00	$123,000.00
40-44	$67,964.71	$8,000.00	$225,000.00
45-49	$119,338.11	$12,000.00	$363,000.00
50-54	$137,710.41	$11,000.00	$400,000.00
55-59	$213,745.91	$15,000.00	$605,500.00
60-64	$229,101.05	$16,000.00	$619,000.00
65-69	$173,532.84	$0.00	$500,000.00
70-74	$185,104.58	$0.00	$558,000.00
75-79	$145,741.92	$0.00	$500,000.00
80	$131,046.32	$0.00	$360,000.00

Expansive Definition Retirement Savings by Age

Expansive savings are the above savings with additional liquid sources added on top.

(For the full definition, see our last post on retirement savings in the United States.)

Expansive Retirement Savings by Age in the US in 2016

Expansive Retirement Savings
Age Range	Average	Median	90th Percentile
18-24	$13,505.84	$1,000.00	$19,000.00
25-29	$19,781.54	$2,000.00	$43,200.00
30-34	$43,162.14	$6,500.00	$90,200.00
35-39	$96,248.72	$8,000.00	$175,000.00
40-44	$128,133.23	$15,110.00	$317,300.00
45-49	$230,287.69	$20,900.00	$491,000.00
50-54	$319,315.86	$22,000.00	$547,000.00
55-59	$495,594.90	$34,000.00	$968,000.00
60-64	$546,326.54	$39,000.00	$1,009,000.00
65-69	$507,279.53	$40,050.00	$1,021,000.00
70-74	$433,614.27	$30,000.00	$979,000.00
75-79	$424,037.21	$27,000.00	$924,000.00
80	$478,758.86	$49,200.00	$1,019,200.00

Tool: Compare Retirement Savings by Age

We created the below calculator which will let you compare retirement savings to other Americans in any age group in 2016. Choose an age of householder, retirement savings definition, and an amount and we’ll estimate where it stood in 2016 with all retirement savings percentiles in the group.

It includes households which are presumably in retirement as well, all the way up to 80+ years old.

Methodology for Retirement Savings by Age

Our data comes from the 2016 Federal Reserve SCF, with their choice of variable in the case of RETQLIQ. For this particular data, it was easier to extract it from Berkeley’s online SDA data extraction tool.

The rest of the methodology, including an explicit definition of expansive retirement savings are found in the original retirement savings post.

How do Your Retirement Savings Stack Up?

As we mentioned last time, we prefer the expansive definition of retirement savings to the strict one. Your retirement spending won’t only be from your retirement accounts. Even still, this data doesn’t capture savings for corner cases like households saving for retirement in, say, commercial real estate. If you’d like to expand the definition even further, try our net worth percentile calculator or perhaps net worth by age.

As we mentioned in the comments in the last article, this data doesn’t include public pensions like Social Security. While projections show current OASDI payouts are unsustainable, zero payout is an exceedingly unlikely scenario. Reduced payouts or higher retirement ages are a more likely fix to the crunch. While it’s conservative to ignore Social Security payouts in retirement planning, some amount of payouts are likely. Because of this, even households with zero savings will have some retirement income.

With the limitations, it’s still compelling data… and a bit concerning. We’d like to see more households with savings and more households taking advantage of the tax savings through retirement accounts such as IRAs and 401(k)s. There are happier datapoints too; for age ranges between 30 and 64 the median household in each set had some retirement account savings.

What do you see in the data? Any interesting, concerning, or happy quirks you see with retirement savings broken out by age?

Average American Retirement Savings, Medians and Percentiles

Economics March 21, 2018 by PK

In 2016, American households headed by someone aged 32-61 averaged $120,809.40 in retirement savings, or $264,453.30 using an expansive calculation. Using the same calculations and definitions, American households have a median of $7,800 and $17,000 saved, respectively.

American Retirement Savings in 2016

In 2016, the Economic Policy Institute released a study with an interesting dive into American household retirement savings. Using the strict criteria of only money in liquid retirement accounts and pensions (think IRAs, 401(k)s, and current and future pensions) they zoomed in on ages 32-61. Presumably, 32 year olds should be out of any education and started saving, while 61 year olds are too young to take Social Security.

Using 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances Data, they found these households saved a median of only $5,000 in retirement accounts. Our analysis extended the same strict definition to 2016 SCF data (released in 2017), finding the median household saved $7,800. We also extended the definition to include other reasonably liquid savings vehicles including stocks, bonds, and savings accounts and found a slightly more encouraging $17,000 median. (Full definitions are in the methodology section).

American Retirement Savings Chart for 2016

Using these definitions, between 23% and 42% of households have no liquid savings likely dedicated to retirement. Here is how the two methodologies compare for selected percentiles.

2016 United States Retirement Savings for selected percentiles — 2016 Retirement Savings in the United States

Compare Your Retirement Savings to Other Americans

How do your own retirement savings stack up with your peers? Although we don’t have this broken out by ages (yet – stay tuned), you can compare your retirement savings to other households here. For the strict definition, only use assets in retirement accounts and pensions. In the expansive definition, use assets anywhere that you plan to dedicate to your eventual retirement.

Retirement Savings Definitions and Methodology

Our data comes from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, and our retirement savings methodology closely hews to the EPI definitions. For the strict definition, we also use household heads age 32-61, and use the variable RETQLIQ. (It’s easiest to pull it yourself using Berkeley’s SDA Tool). In short, it includes IRAs, Keoghs, Pensions, and Thrift-type accounts (such as your 401(k) or 403(b)).

For the expansive definition, we started from the umbrella category FIN, or all financial assets. From that we removed checking accounts and prepaid cards (presumably people use those to spend), as well as other miscellaneous assets. We also eliminated whole life insurance and trusts, which are generally estate planning tools.

Here’s how our definition lines up with the Berkeley Net Worth flow chart [pdf] (red box = not included):

How Do Your Retirement Savings Compare?

While even the expansive definition doesn’t capture all styles of retirement savings (like real estate), these numbers are still worrying. A large number of households – 42% or 23% – have zero assets in the categories likely earmarked for retirement.

(Also see our net worth percentile tool or net worth by age calculator).

We’ll break these numbers down further into age groups of course, but as a first cut these are concerning. You’d have hoped to see a larger number of households with retirement savings set aside and higher total assets. In 2016 the 401(k) contribution limit was $18,000 and 57% of households in the strict set had less saved in their retirement accounts.

What did you take away from this data?

How Many Accredited Investors Are There by Age?

Economics March 14, 2018 by PK

We present here estimates for the number of accredited investors by age in the United States for full-year 2016. In our accredited investors in America post, we estimated around 9.86% of households qualify as accredited… and using ages here reveals a very interesting distribution. Our accredited investor estimates range from .52% for householders aged 25-29 up to 16.56% for households headed by someone aged 80 or more.

What’s the Accredited Investor Criteria in America?

The Securities Act of 1933, §230.501 defines what you need to qualify as an Accredited Investor. For a couple or individual to qualify, these are the most common methods:

$1,000,000 in net worth for a couple or individual outside equity in a primary residence (see our Net Worth Percentile Calculator, which allows excluding equity)
(or) A couple which earned $300,000 the last two straight years and expects to continue in the current year.
(or) One individual who earned $200,000 the last two straight years and expects to continue in the current year.

Accredited investor status is required for certain investments, such as angel investments, hedge funds, private equity, and others. It’s also commonly the first screen for franchising.

What can Accredited Investors Invest In?

For public investments, he SEC requires that companies and private funds register security offerings and mandates specific disclosures. Alternatively, once an investor qualifies as an Accredited Investor, that investor can then invest in private placements. That includes things such as venture capital funds, angel investments, hedge funds, and other private placements such as franchises.

Number of Accredited Investors by Age Estimates

As stated above, households with a head of a certain age were up to 32x more likely to be accredited than younger households. When graphed, you can see that the accredited investors by age distribution is heavily skewed toward older households.

Accredited Investors by Age in the US in 2016: Estimated by Households

Here is that estimated data in table form:

*Age Min*	*Age Max*	*Total Households*	*Households Accredited*	*Percentage*
18	24	6,200,414	69,409	1.12%
25	29	8,551,226	44,253	0.52%
30	34	10,772,092	132,468	1.23%
35	39	10,173,501	526,776	5.18%
40	44	11,051,864	837,954	7.58%
45	49	11,044,607	1,127,545	10.21%
50	54	12,056,259	1,234,886	10.24%
55	59	12,711,082	1,955,079	15.38%
60	64	11,507,120	1,842,757	16.01%
65	69	10,390,841	1,488,547	14.33%
70	74	7,418,787	1,028,152	13.86%
75	79	6,101,274	804,199	13.18%
80	+	8,002,632	1,325,016	16.56%

All our data comes from the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, so we use households as our base unit for convenience. However, the law itself states that this only applies to a natural person and his or her spouse. There is no such thing as an ‘accredited investor household’, so the actual numbers will differ some at the margins.

Accredited Investor by Age Methodology

The Federal Reserve SCF microdata is the base for all of this data, the so-called “gold standard” for net worth studies. Individual survey questions apply to a household head and a secondary person (often a spouse), so we attempted to divide income between them. Here is our criteria:

Net worth MINUS primary home equity >= $1,000,000
Household Income >= $300,000 and Normal Income >= $300,000
Either of
- Household Head Income >= $200,000 AND Normal Income >= ($200,000 + Spouse Income)
- Spouse Income >= $200,000 AND Normal Income >= ($200,000 + Household Head Income)

There are errors on two sides:

We over-count households on the margin where there is a non-married person with significant earnings and/or net worth living with a married couple.
We under-count if pension or investment income would have qualified an investor (but not a couple).

Also note that our estimates aren’t too confident, especially for younger households. Here is the actual number of household responses in each age range for the public set (before the SCF imputations) and the estimated number of accredited investors surveyed:

*Age Range*	*Households Surveyed*	*Est. Accredited Investors*
18 – 24	205	3
25 – 29	357	3
30 – 34	441	10
35 – 39	492	49.2
40 – 44	535	72.8
45 – 49	576	128.2
50 – 54	658	172.4
55 – 59	743	271.6
60 – 64	703	266.8
65 – 69	577	218.2
70 – 74	366	135.4
75 – 79	270	104.6
80+	325	117

You can apply your own judgement to how much you trust individual age group accredited investor estimates. Caveats aside, the numbers are reasonable estimates of the distribution by age and raw quantity of accredited investors.

Conclusions on the Number of Accredited Investors By Age

As you might expect, there are many more older accredited investors than younger accredited investors. We’ve done some work on DQYDJ on how income changes over a career, and net worth usually accumulates over time. From households headed by a 25-29 year old to 80+ year olds, there’s a whopping 32-fold increase in accredited investors.

Though the resolution on this data isn’t perfect, it lets us estimate some interesting facts:

The median age of an accredited investor is between 60 and 64 years old
25.7% of all accredited investors are in their 50s
Only 6.22% of accredited investors are in their 30s or younger(!)

While you might have assumed the broad conclusion, the degree of the skew is perhaps a bit surprising. The fact remains, though, that accredited investors are rare, and young accredited investors even more-so.

For more on age based measures of affluence and wealth, see our income percentile by age and net worth by age calculators. Let us know if you see anything interesting mashing up those articles with this one. And certainly also let us know how this data strikes you – more skewed than you thought, or about in-line?

Correlation of Income and Net Worth for Age Groups in America in 2016

Economics January 21, 2018 by PK

Older person's hand holding the hand and foot of a baby.

We previously showed there isn’t a strong correlation of income and net worth in America. While writing that post we posed you a question: if income isn’t the best input to describe net worth, what can improve it? To wit, there’s a very important factor we should include: let’s look at the correlation of income and net worth by age.

Age vs. the Income and Net Worth Correlation

And, indeed – age does affect the measures. But even when grouping by age there isn’t a strong correlation outside of households headed by a 30-34 or 45-49 year old. Yes, the results we got are weird indeed…

Quoting the above linked article, the correlation of income net worth in America in 2016 was .5069, for an R^2 of .2569.

Using the same age breakdowns we used in the net worth by age calculator, we found that subgroups varied from a correlation of .1620 to .7931 (R^2 between a nearly non-existent .0262 and decent .6290).

*Age Range*	*R^2*	R
18-24	0.02624	0.16199
25-29	0.18005	0.42432
30-34	0.62904	0.79312
35-39	0.11481	0.33884
40-44	0.22518	0.47453
45-49	0.50429	0.71013
50-54	0.29703	0.54501
55-59	0.26951	0.51914
60-64	0.26422	0.51403
65+	0.26829	0.51797

In graphical form, here’s how it looks:

Correlation of Income and Net Worth by Age — Coefficient of Determination for Income and Net Worth by Age, 2016 SCF Data

Unlike in our 2013 article, there’s not really a good narrative for these calculations. (At least to our minds…)

If we matched the 2013 narrative the R^2 for households with heads aged 35-44 would be much higher. If the lifecycle story held true, income would better describe net worth early in a career.

Older households would see a falloff as a householder grew older and other factors grew dominant. Instead, the above graph looks mainly like noise.

Graphs of Income and Net Worth by Age

We made visualizations for the correlation of income and net worth across al the age groups we examined today.

The size of the point shows how many households it represents. The color is the age of the head of household. Income is on the x-axis and net worth is on the y-axis.

(For any of the six, click to zoom in.)

Households with Head Under 35

Income and Net Worth for Householders Under 35

35-44 Year Old Householder

Income and Net Worth for Householders 35-44

Households with Head Under 45-54

Income and Net Worth for Householders 45-54

Householder 55-64

Income and Net Worth for Householders 55-64

Households with Head 65-74

Income and Net Worth for Householders 65-74

Household Head 75 and Up

Income and Net Worth for Householders 75+

Methodology and Source on the Correlation Of Income and Net Worth by Age

As in other posts, we start with the 2016 SCF Data from the Federal Reserve, and export all 5 imputed data sets. We take a weighted average for each to estimate the original sample.

(See the correlation of income and net worth by age post and the correlation of income and net worth for the upper middle class post for more details on the process.)

After that, it’s straightforward – split by age groups and make the same calculations from the past articles.

Conclusions on Income and Net Worth Correlations by Age

Income should affect net worth – there is definitely causation here. All of these articles suggest that income isn’t an overwhelming factor in net worth, though. There’s something else there – age and time in the markets matter, sure, but also propensity to save, diligence, motivation and (yes) luck.

This data isn’t longitudinal, so we only have a one year snapshot and are limited in what we can measure. That in mind, if you can think of another way to slice this, let us know – otherwise we’re going to leave the correlations alone for the 2016 data. Next we’ll try to figure out how best to present budgets for various incomes through the SCF – wish us luck.

Correlation of Income and Net Worth for the Upper Middle Class in America in 2016

Economics January 9, 2018 by PK

Earlier, we looked at the correlation of income and net worth for all American households in 2016. In this post, we’ll look at the correlation for well-off or upper middle class households.

What’s the correlation of net worth and income for affluent households and millionaires?

The correlation of net worth and income for households making $100,000 or more was .4967, or an R^2 of .2467.
For households with $1,000,000 or more in net worth, the correlation was even lower at .4745 or an R^2 of .2252.

As was the story with all households, net worth isn’t reasonably predicted by income for upper middle class households.

The Correlation of Net Worth and Income for Households Making Over $100,000

For our first definition of upper middle class we used a household income of $100,000 or more. Although arbitrary, there is still cachet to the so-called six-figure income.

It’s both a psychologically important number and (conveniently) an obvious tick mark on a log base 10 graph. Here’s what our plot looks like:

Correlation of Income and Net Worth for the Upper Middle Class measured by household income over $100,000 — Household Income of $100,000+ vs. Net Worth in America for 2016 (Click to zoom)

As you can see from our household income percentile calculator, it’s a fairly high benchmark to clear.

Making $100,000 would put a household at roughly the 70% income bracket for in 2018 (although the SCF data – from 2016 – estimates closer to 75.6%). Regardless, there are a wide range of reported household net worth numbers in narrow income bands.

Visually, you can see there is a positive correlation between the two at this income level, but remember the scale is logarithmic.

The data reveals that for the 3.5% of respondents making between $100,000 and $110,000, net worth spanned from somewhere around -$2 million to +$10 million!

The Correlation of Net Worth and Income for Households With Net Worth Over $1,000,000

Once again, blame the power of the phrase “millionaire” for lending us the next definition for the upper middle class. Having a million dollars in net worth (and earning that second comma) is still an excellent benchmark in the 2010s.

Of course, we’ve also argued that often a million dollars isn’t enough…

Still, a million bucks is as good a place to cut the data as any. Here’s how it looks on a log base 10 scale:

Correlation of Income and Net Worth for the Upper Middle Class measured by net worth over $1,000,000 — Household Income vs. Net Worth over $1 million in America for 2016 (Click to zoom)

As above, you can get a look at household net worth percentile calculations, or skip to our article on millionaires in America. Millionaire status is even more exclusive than the first cut; we estimate it was the 88.2% wealth percentile for American households.

Further, 3.9% of households reported between $1,000,000 and $1,500,000 in net worth. Their household income? It varied roughly between $0 and $1,069,261.

So once again, using income to predict net worth here falls flat.

If there’s something more to be said, it’s that the chart has a great spread. You can visually tease out that age comes into play here.

The orange points (younger millionaires) do seem to have higher incomes to make the screen, while the bluer points (older millionaires) are all over the map. Further, there are many more older millionaires than younger millionaires.

Source on the Correlation Of Income and Net Worth for the Upper Middle Class

As per tradition, we started with the 2016 SCF Data from the Federal Reserve. For the details of how we divided the responses, see the previous post in the series. After that, we split the data points with the filters described in this post.

Net Worth, Income, and the Upper Middle Class

Unfortunately, solely using income to predict net worth doesn’t cut it for affluent or wealthy households. These are still separate enough concepts, and for any net worth model you’d consider building you need to add additional variables to better predict a household’s net worth.

Millionaires could be retired or had lowered income in 2016 versus a previous year. Perhaps they even inherited their wealth. On the $100,000+ income side, in any given six-figure household the members might be in debt or be wholly financially dependent.

Should You Include Your Primary Home in Net Worth?

Investing November 13, 2017 by PK

When calculating net worth you need to include the value of your home. Proper net worth accounting adds up all assets and subtracts all debts. Primary homes are assets, and debt secured by primary homes is debt.

Adding Homes to Net Worth: Confusingly Controversial

Although including primary home equity in net worth is correct, this is a surprisingly controversial subject.

You can find arguments against this proper net worth math everywhere from message boards to blog posts to social media. Very influential people have argued – and undoubtedly will continue to argue – in favor of completely ignoring a primary home in any wealth calculation.

Modern home, presumably owned with equity and included in net worth — A home has value even if a person owns it.

Blue checkmarks, popular authors, fervent financial gurus, and angry commenters aside, these arguments are all wrong. Your home’s contribution to your net worth is real.

As far as we can tell, the argument for excluding primary homes come from two angles: the legal angle and the emotional angle. We’ll address both in turn.

The Law, Primary Homes, and Wealth Calculations

Here on the site, we calculate the number of accredited investors in America. The law which governs accreditation, §230.501, has a few criteria for an individual to be Accredited. The most common way for a natural person to achieve the status is through a wealth calculation:

$1,000,000 in net worth outside equity in a primary residence

(More math on this is in our net worth percentile calculator).

And therein lies some controversy – the Securities Act explicitly disallows primary home equity in accreditation.

It’s not just the Securities Actwhich treats a primary residence as special. Many states recognize a primary house – homestead – as an asset with increased protection.

Some localities change tax rates or otherwise incent homesteaders, and many states exempt part of a house from bankruptcy proceedings. (Look up your state here).

Undeniably, Federal, State, and Local laws variously treat the primary home as special. However, the legal argument still isn’t a good one, for a couple reasons…

1. Your Home is Not an Investment

We agree 100% with this sentiment: your home is not an investment. Instead it is, at its core, shelter.

The one thing all of the primary home laws have in common is protecting the home from seizure or loss. Those laws aren’t saying that net worth doesn’t include a primary home. They are making a value judgement that it is extremely punitive to force the loss of a home on top of other losses.

The Securities Act, therefore, is calculating what’s ‘okay‘ for an investor to lose in a risky private placement.

Tax breaks are value judgements that homesteaders should receive a break over landlords and absentee homeowners. And bankruptcy laws are acknowledgements that people need shelter and shouldn’t have to endure the loss of a home on top of other assets.

2. The Math Doesn’t Work When Excluding Primary Homes

Reasoning through the legalities, you’ll quickly realize that the math wouldn’t work anyway.

The simple truth is, whether you’re a renter or a borrower or living rent-free through the kindness of some individual, your shelter costs money.

At its core, it doesn’t make sense that you would exclude a primary home… yet could sell that home and instantly create wealth ‘from scratch’. (Okay, fine – after selling and escrow, minus a few percent for realtor’s fees.)

A renter is also in a worse place than a homeowner if an investment goes south. The renter will then have zero resources left to rebuild, while the homeowner still can sell the house for real money which uncontroversially would count towards net worth.

There’s a reductio ad absurdum argument here as well:

Imagine a homeowner with $999,999 in a checking account and a primary home worth $3,000,001 owned free and clear. He or she would not be an accredited investor, despite being worth $4,000,000.

Importantly, §230.501 recognizes the fungibility of a primary home’s value. Debt secured by the home in the previous 60 days only counts on the debts side; any resulting assets aren’t included.

That’s an absolute necessity with the absurdity – if that clause didn’t exist you could simply tap home equity and deposit it at the bank to hack your number!

Emotional Arguments about Net Worth and Primary Homes

The other argument type we’ve seen for ignoring primary homes in net worth calculations is emotional. These arguments appeal to frugal instincts, bias, and even normative judgements about whether homes are “worth it”.

These emotional arguments oftentimes target coastal states with huge home prices relative to the heartland. “But home prices may fall” is a common theme, along with value judgements like “that home is unnecessary!”.

These arguments for excluding primary home equity also miss the point.

Wrong but Useful Net Worth Arguments?

We’ll grudgingly admit these arguments are sometimes useful – for some people, it might be useful to ignore primary home equity when viewing finances. It might help to narrow down an expendable subset of total wealth without cluttering the view with home equity.

But remember – separating total net worth from spendable net worth is already common! Categorizing different assets is part of the game when reviewing your finances.

Just as you don’t spend your college fund on vacation, you shouldn’t invest in stocks using your house.

Ignoring home equity might sometimes be useful, but holistically viewing your assets and debts is important as well.

Primary Homes and Rental Suitability

While it’s true that some areas have extreme housing price gains, that alone isn’t a great argument to exclude home equity from wealth.

Houses for purchase are often better than units for rent. Many arguments conflate rental cost and housing rental cost, ignoring that it’s more expensive to rent a single family home in a neighborhood. Often, rental cost and mortgage cost is a wash when comparing like-to-like.

While an emotional net worth argument might suggest renting to current owners, things aren’t as they seem. There are objective measures of home quality outside home value – crime, school rating, distance from amenities, commute, and more. Arguing “you could save by renting!” isn’t appropriate without also making sure comparisons are appropriate.

Take the San Francisco Bay Area, for example. It is possible to rent a bed relatively cheaply in a hacker house with 18 entrepreneur roommates – but why do that if you’re married with two school age kids and a dog?

The value isn’t obvious – or sometimes even existent – when you start to narrow the criteria.

Emotions Countering Emotional Net Worth Arguments

One argument for excluding primary home equity is of the form “you should be renting”. This supposedly justifies leaving it out since “there is a better alternative to your current state”.

There’s an emotional counter – or an economically rational one – to this “renter argument” of net worth: when was the last time you washed a rental car?

Rope bridge as an analogy for stable housing — *Stability is a good argument when countering emotional net worth discussions.*

Many rental benefits – the ability to move easily, convenience factor, fungibility of many units, and anonymity of renting – are negatives for some lifestyles. As you wouldn’t wash your rental car, you don’t remodel your rental. In fact, you often can’t – usually you have to use temporary fixtures and can’t paint or even replace appliances.

A neighborhood of homeowners is different. By giving up the ability to quickly move, you also develop long-term relationships with neighbors. You and your neighbors can renovate your homes and improve your properties. Neighborhoods with many owners also have increased political clout – as people don’t move as much, politicians overweight homeowners’ political preferences.

Having a stake in home value has many positive benefits. Homeowners usually behave economically rationally, improving homes and forging fruitful relationships with neighbors. Politicians also see homeowners as more dependable, favoring them with other new laws of the sort described above in this post.

Depending on your own value judgements and stage in life, different emotional arguments will apply. Regardless – even if owning a home suddenly doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t make the home worthless. A change in life circumstances sometimes means you should sell the house, which will raise real funds (that also would count towards net worth).

Primary Home Equity Counts in Net Worth

You should always count your primary home equity in a net worth calculation. In this post, we’ve discussed some of the conclusions that arise from this simple fact – some which might help you with your own finances.

While you have many types of assets, not all assets are – or should be – interchangeable.

We wrote above about not spending your college fund to travel, but this really applies to all types of assets and debts you hold.

For immediate spending, you want liquid, easy to access funds… say, a checking or savings account. If you’re rolling up an ‘Investable Asset’ category, you’d leave out this immediate spending as well as your primary home, the value of your car, and many other categories as well.

Remember… net worth is just a snapshot of finances at an instance in time. While real estate can fall in value in the future, so can all other assets – even cash!

At some level, wealth is a theoretical: if you sold everything today, how much cash could you raise? It doesn’t necessarily include all transaction costs, taxes, and liquidity considerations… just as a business’s book value or market value isn’t a business’s liquidation (or salvage) value.

Either way, that doesn’t change the fact that a home has real value, whether you live in it or not. You should always count the equity of a primary home in a net worth calculation.

Net Worth by Age Calculator for the United States

Economics October 16, 2017 by PK

Below is a net worth by age percentile calculator for the United States in 2016 (newest data in 2019). Enter net worth and the age of a household’s primary earner for a net worth percentile estimate to nearest one percent. Below the tool, see average net worth by age, median net worth by age, and top 1%.

Afterwards: see the overview of net worth brackets or the aggregated net worth percentile calculator.

Net Worth By Age Calculator for the United States

What is the average net worth by age in America? (And median)

Average and Median Net Worth by Age in the United States, 2016. — Average and Median Net Worth by Age Range, 2016. (Includes primary home equity.)

Below we’ve calculated the median and average net worth for all ages in the United States.

We made two calculations: net worth including a home, then another without a house.

Average Net Worth by Age

Average net worth ranges from $93,982.80 for 18-24 year olds all the way up to $1,180,377.62 for 60-64 year olds. This table lists the average and median net worth for all the ages in the United States:

Age	Average Net Worth	Median Net Worth
18-24	$93,982.80	$4,394.53
25-29	$39,565.88	$8,971.58
30-34	$95,235.53	$29,125.08
35-39	$257,581.86	$40,666.52
40-44	$316,660.61	$87,842.71
45-49	$599,194.17	$105,717.43
50-54	$838,702.95	$137,866.81
55-59	$1,150,037.78	$168,044.19
60-64	$1,180,377.62	$224,775.17
65-69	$1,056,483.97	$209,575.26
70-74	$1,062,427.63	$233,614.37
75-79	$1,097,415.06	$242,699.75
80+	$1,039,818.04	$270,904.40

Average Net Worth by Age (Not Including a Primary Home)

(Even though we ran numbers both ways, you should include your primary residence in your net worth calculation).

Age	Average Net Worth (No Home)	Median Net Worth (No Home)
18-24	$86,952.25	$4,012.26
25-29	$16,941.07	$4,397.11
30-34	$58,702.34	$15,980.13
35-39	$202,975.63	$17,247.23
40-44	$231,092.29	$36,392.69
45-49	$459,091.51	$50,462.52
50-54	$701,558.76	$50,154.48
55-59	$979,492.18	$69,338.65
60-64	$985,790.54	$105,875.74
65-69	$871,948.49	$94,665.45
70-74	$861,025.60	$77,472.59
75-79	$887,051.06	$69,551.59
80+	$826,304.45	$121,563.27

Top One Percent Income by Age

We previous wrote on the top one percent in the United States – but as you’d expect it varies by age. Older Americans have had more time to amass wealth so have harder and harder thresholds for the top one percent net worth.

Here is the top one percent new worth in America by age, with and without a primary residence:

Age	Top One Percent Net Worth	Top One Percent Net Worth (No Home)
18-24	$977,348.20	$939,682.28
25-29	$685,255.69	$384,565.71
30-34	$922,445.16	$730,793.54
35-39	$2,307,300.12	$1,981,943.23
40-44	$2,864,334.14	$2,593,198.67
45-49	$9,666,729.57	$6,650,285.48
50-54	$14,746,583.81	$13,761,137.50
55-59	$14,590,118.46	$14,026,472.57
60-64	$16,161,058.98	$13,418,073.59
65-69	$12,315,188.40	$11,428,415.50
70-74	$11,673,570.56	$10,042,082.91
75-79	$13,865,072.71	$12,899,231.61
80+	$11,783,806.33	$11,034,430.72

What is Net Worth?

Net worth is the most important number in personal finance – your value today assuming you sold everything and paid off all your debts. Combining net worth with age is better still.

How do you calculate your net worth?

To calculate your net worth, first add up the dollar value of all of your assets. That includes your home, car, all bank accounts, brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, and other things of value.

Next, subtract the sum of all of your debts. This category includes your mortgage, credit card debts, student loans, personal loans, and everywhere else you owe money.

That final number is your net worth. With your net worth and age, you can compare your performance with the average, median, and other wealth percentiles on this page.

For a simpler way, sign up for the tool Personal Capital for free. They automatically track all of your assets and debts, and even project your retirement income .

Accredited Investors in America Based on Net Worth and Age

Net worth is the primary way investors become Accredited Investors. These investors can access special investments – hedge funds, venture capital, private equity, and other investments and placements such as franchises.

Our estimates of Accredited Investors by age vary between .52% of households headed by a 25-29 year old up to 16.5% for 80+ years old. Want more? See our post on the number of accredited investors in America.

Why Care About Net Worth By Age?

When discussing net worth, there’s a tendency to compare wealth across age groups without any consideration about whether that’s appropriate. It isn’t, for a number of reasons:

Older people heading households are more likely to have spouses.
Age is a reasonable proxy for job experience and skills, and experience commands higher pay.
Households headed by older people have been accumulating wealth longer.

There is a skew towards wealth being held by older folks, which should be the case if a society is producing wealth. This makes cross age wealth comparisons dubious at best – it’s best to compare relative wealth within peer groups. Hence the calculator!

Always remember one inevitable fact: people get older. The households with 18-24 year olds heading them will eventually be headed by 60-64 year olds, with additional (or different) household members. Since you can’t relive past years, cross-age comparisons don’t make as much sense. Your 35 year old self can’t accumulate for 25 year old you. However, you can save for you at 38.

We suggest keeping an eye on relative wealth among your peers, or wealth between adjacent age groups. One simple way is to sign up for Personal Capital for free and have them track your wealth and income.

Good luck with your wealth accumulation!

Similar Tools and Research

Read our millionaires in America post.
For income, try the individual income calculator.
Or to split income by age, use the individual income by age calculator.

Methodology and Source on the Net Worth by Age Calculator

Data comes from the 2016 Federal Reserve SCF, first released in September, 2017. For a full discussion on our net worth methodology, see our net worth brackets page. The net worth percentile calculator discusses valuing primary home equity. As an important note, remember that we’re looking at discrete households here. Especially for younger individuals, if an adult is living in another home their net worth is rolled up with the primary earner.

We are also in debt to Anthony Damico and his online R analysis booklet ASDFree. It makes SCF analysis much smoother – please check it out if you’re interested in running these calculations yourself.

Net Worth by Age Calculator Data Quality

Due to popular demand, we shifted the age range breakdown from the 2013 Age Percentile Calculator. We now include 13 age ranges, carefully selected to shine a better light on (common) retirement brackets. Note that our divisions are finer than the Fed’s choices, some of these brackets are relatively sparse in data points. Especially when looking at the lowest and highest percentages, keep the uncertainty in mind.

Here are the number of data-points and corresponding estimated American households in each age bucket:

Age Group	Estimated Households	Datapoints
18-24	6,200,414	205
25-29	8,551,226	357
30-34	10,772,092	441
35-39	10,173,501	492
40-44	11,051,864	535
45-49	11,044,607	576
50-54	12,056,259	658
55-59	12,711,082	743
60-64	11,507,120	703
65-69	10,390,841	577
70-74	7,418,787	366
75-79	6,101,274	270
80+	8,002,632	325
Total	125,981,701	6,248

(Data-points here are actual survey responses in the public set, not the total number in all replicates.)

For a past comparison, check out our archived calculator for 2013.

Net Worth Percentile Calculator for the United States

Economics October 1, 2017 by PK

This page contains a net worth percentile calculator for the household wealth distribution in the United States in 2016 (newest data as of 2019). Enter a current net worth for a net worth percentile estimate to the closest .5%.

After: see percentiles by age in the net worth by age calculato r. Prefer income? Try i ncome or income by age.

Net Worth Percentile Calculator for the United States

Average, Median, Top 1% and Selected Net Worth Percentiles

While you can get all this information from the tool, it’s useful to analyze selected net worth summary statistics. By seeing average net worth, median, net worth, the top one percent and others you get a better idea of the United States Wealth distribution.

You can also see a more extensive examination in our net worth brackets article. Let’s dig in.

What is the average net worth in the United States? What is the median net worth?

In the United States, the average net worth per household is $692,100. The median net worth per household is $97,300.

Who are the top one percent in America by net worth?

Net worth of over $10,374,030.10 would put a household in the top 1%.The top 1% is roughly the wealthiest 1,259,817 households in America.

Note that The 1%, usually refers to the top 1% of income earners in the United States. We’re prefer to use net worth – it’s easy to convert net worth to income but not always vice versa.

Who are the top .1% by net worth?

Please note that it is probably a couple million dollars away in either direction from the ‘true’ value. Data is sparse at this level.

Roughly 125,981 households have the top .1% of net worth.
More than $43,090,281.00 in wealth would put a household in the top .1% with 2016 data.

Please also see our article on the one percent in net worth and income in America where we discuss the question in finer detail.

Net Worth Deciles in the United States

Net worth brackets in the United States (2016 SCF Data) — Net Worth Deciles in the United States

Here is the net worth break-point for households in America at every decile:

Net Worth Percentile	Net Worth
10.00%	-$962.66
20.00%	$4,798.06
30.00%	$18,753.84
40.00%	$49,132.21
50.00%	$97,225.55
60.00%	$169,550.64
70.00%	$279,594.27
80.00%	$499,263.50
90.00%	$1,182,390.36

What is Net Worth?

Net worth is the ultimate number to track for your personal finance. Net worth is your total value if you sold everything and paid off all of your debts. Tracking your net worth over time will put you on the road to financial independence or retirement.

How do you calculate your net worth?

To calculate net worth, add up the value of every single one of your assets. Next, subtract the sum of all of your debts.

The result is your net worth. With that net worth in hand, compare yourself to the net worth of other Americans on this page.

Simplify the net worth tracking process by trying the free tool Personal Capital. They’ll automatically calculate your assets and debts and even have a retirement planning calculator to project future wealth.

How Many Households Have Between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in Net Worth? (Or Other Boundaries)

We’ve built an estimate of the number of households between net worth thresholds directly into the tool. You can get a rough cut of any two numbers you’d like simply by subtracting or multiplying. Let’s do it together for households between $1 million and $2 million in net worth:

$1,000,000 in wealth is near the 88% in America. Around 15,117,804 households matched this bracket or more.
$2,000,000 in wealth is around the 93.5% in America. Around 8,188,810 households or so matched this net worth or more.

There are two ways to compute the rough number of households:

15,117,804 – 8,188,810 = Roughly 6,928,994 households in America have between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in wealth. (call it 7,000,000)

93.5% – 88% = 5.5%.
5.5% * 125,981,700 = 6,928,993.5 or 6,928,994 households.

If you’re interested in millionaire research, see our post on the number of millionaires in America. We look at millionaires, decamillionaires and many more breakdowns of this wealth data.

Differences Between 2016 and 2013 Net Worth Data in the United States

The data is perfectly comparable to the 2013 SCF data, and we’re happy to report that every single net worth bracket increased in wealth over the three years between surveys. Be careful not to draw improper conclusions – the data is not longitudinal, so we can’t state with certainty that individual households improved. However, the static data shows an improvement at every breakpoint.

Here’s the improvement at every wealth decile versus the 2013 wealth percentile calculations:

*Net Worth Bracket*	*2016 Wealth Breakpoint*	*2013 Wealth Breakpoint*	*Difference*
10.00%	-$962.66	-$2,132.84	$1,170.18
20.00%	$4,798.06	$4,434.38	$363.68
30.00%	$18,753.84	$15,281.42	$3,472.42
40.00%	$49,132.21	$39,433.60	$9,698.60
50.00%	$97,225.55	$83,976.99	$13,248.56
60.00%	$169,550.64	$152,243.15	$17,307.49
70.00%	$279,594.27	$254,589.19	$25,005.08
80.00%	$499,263.50	$441,435.43	$57,828.07
90.00%	$1,182,390.36	$972,862.05	$209,528.31

Here’s the same information in easy-to-share graph format:

Wealth Percentile and net worth percentile calculator decile comparison. — Net Worth Percentile Changes for US household Net Worth, 2016 vs. 2013

Accredited Investors in America Based on Net Worth

To invest in private equity funds, angel funds, venture capital, hedge funds, , and other types of private investments an investor needs to be an Accredited Investor. In America, the most common way to qualify is through net worth, having a net worth of $1,000,000 not including equity in a primary residence.

We estimate that of the ~12.4 million accredited investor households, around 11.3 million qualify just through the net worth criteria. Investors can also qualify through individual or household income.

Here is our math on the number of accredited investors in America.

Similar Tools and Research

See our millionaires in America article.
See our analysis in the net worth bracket article.
To divide by age, see the net worth percentile by age calculator.
To rank income, try the individual income calculator.
Or to divide income by age, use the individual income by age calculator.

Source and Methodology on the Net Worth Percentile Calculator for 2016

Our data comes from the 2016 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. It encompasses 6,248 actual American households in the public set. Those households are spread across 5 sets with replicate weights, and weight to 125,981,700 households. We turn this into 200 quantiles, so wealth is estimated to the half percentage. See our article on wealth brackets for more details on methodology.

Net worth numbers come from the Federal Reserve’s provided macro. We also make estimates ignoring primary home equity by taking the estimated value of the primary residence and subtracting from it all debts secured by the residence. This includes mortgages, home equity loans, and similar.

Note: remember that if you sell a primary residence you still need to pay rent. We aren’t fans of this calculation method but we heard your arguments and built it into the tool.

A note on accuracy: SCF data is self-reported and is presented to you today as the result of a complex survey design. The survey data includes a warning: “[B]ecause detailed information on the sample design cannot be released, and because of the complexity of the SCF design, users cannot apply some of the standard procedures for variance estimation.”

For research, information and estimation purposes, you can trust the numbers you see. For anything where you need more detail, run the numbers or go knock on some doors yourself.

How Many Millionaires Are There in America?

Economics September 28, 2017 by PK

The word millionaire feels magic. The first sum which features two commas is still an aspirational net worth goal for many people. And even if some of the sheen has come off in modern times, you probably still wonder how many millionaires there are in the US.

Today, we’ll look at millionaires households in the United States, as well as: $2, $3, $4, $5, and decamillionaires. Ready to explore the top one percent of American wealth – and beyond?

How many millionaires are there in the United States?

We estimate that there are 14,814,453 millionaires in the United States. A million dollar net worth for a household is the 88.24% wealth bracket in the US in 2016: 11.76% of all households.

Note: for this stat and the subsequent ones, we are only discussing household data. Remember, net worth isn’t generally divisible between household members (short of court-assisted situations).

Additionally, all data includes the value of any primary home.

(Our net worth percentile calculator allows you to turn off home equity.)

How many multimillionaires are there in the United States? More than $2 million or $3 million?

Our estimate is 7,647,278 American households have $2 million or more, and 4,665,039 households have $3 million or more in net worth. $2 million or more in net worth covers roughly 6.07% of households, while $3 million or more covers 3.70%.

Those are the 93.93% and 96.30% wealth percentiles.

How many $4 or $5 millionaires are there in the US?

There are around 3,527,878 American Households eclipsing $4,000,000 in wealth, or 2.80% of all households. Likewise, there are around 2,888,408 households with $5,000,000 or more, 2.29% of households.

Those are the 97.20% and 97.71% percentiles, respectively.

How many decamillionaires are There in America?

There are roughly 1,347,336 decamillionaire households in America. This isn’t quite the one percent for 2016 in the US but it’s close. Our estimate pegs 1.07% of households as decamillionaires, or the 98.93% wealth percentile. (See our breakdown on the one percent in America).

(The nice thing about $10,000,000 is it has an associated name, “decamillion”.)

How Many Americans Have More than $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 in Net Worth?

We estimate there are somewhere around 83,620 American Households with $50,000,000 or more, and 36,202 households with $100,000,000 or more. That maps to the top .07% and .03% of households, and 99.93% and 99.97% net worth percentiles.

Some caution: SCF data is stretched at these extreme wealth goals. There are larger gaps between datapoints, and some very high net worth survey responses aren’t in the public set.

At these net worths statistics are hazier. You’re almost to the point where polling these households would give better data. We’re very solidly in the business intelligence zone here – don’t quote this section in your term paper.

A few surveys address this population, such as this one from Credit Suisse. Their survey uses the 2013 SCF and projects forward, and their estimates are about 30% fewer households in each bracket than ours.

How Many Americans are Billionaires?

Try the Forbes Billionaires List or the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Yes, there are so few billionaires they’re all individually trackable on a daily basis.

America’s Many Millionaires…

More than 10% of all households in America are “Millionaire Households”.

That’s close to 15,000,000 homes rocking two comma net worths. There were roughly 126 million households in America when this data was collected.

Here is everything once again, this time in chart format:

How Many Millionaires Are there in the US? — How Many Millionaires Are There in the US? (Federal Reserve SCF, 2016)

And now here’s all of the numbers we mentioned above, but this time in a table for easy copy & paste. Share with your friends!

Wealth Benchmark	Wealth Percentile	How Many Millionaire Households in the US?
*$1,000,000.00*	88.24%	14,814,453
*$2,000,000.00*	93.93%	7,647,278
*$3,000,000.00*	96.30%	4,665,039
*$4,000,000.00*	97.20%	3,527,878
*$5,000,000.00*	97.71%	2,888,408
*$10,000,000.00*	98.93%	1,347,336
*$50,000,000.00*	99.93%	83,620
*$100,000,000.00*	99.97%	36,202

We hope you had as much fun exploring the wealth data as we had running it down.

Data comes from the 2016 Federal Reserve SCF.

See anything interesting in this data? Are the numbers higher or lower than you suspected? Do you agree a million isn’t what it used to be?

United States Net Worth Brackets, Percentiles, and Top One Percent

Economics September 28, 2017 by PK

In this post, we’ll look at the United States Net Worth Brackets for 2017 (most recent data in 2019). We include wealth brackets for selected percentiles, average, median, and a special section zooming into the net worth of the top one percent

After: check out our net worth percentile calculator and net worth by age calculator.

Selected Net Worth Brackets and Percentiles for the United States in 2017

There were 126.0 million households in the United States (Federal Reserve estimate) in Full-Year 2016.

For selected percentiles, the following are the net worth brackets and breakpoints:

Net Worth Percentile	Net Worth
10.0%	-$962.66
20.0%	$4,798.06
30.0%	$18,753.84
40.0%	$49,132.21
50.0%	$97,225.55
60.0%	$169,550.64
70.0%	$279,594.27
80.0%	$499,263.50
90.0%	$1,182,390.36
95.0%	$2,377,985.22
99.0%	$10,374,030.10

Dollar estimates are the actual net worth quantile breakpoint – the ‘border’ between two wealth percentiles.

For example, if someone had exactly $279,594.27 in wealth we’d estimate they are the 70th percentile.

Average, Median, Top 1% and Selected Net Worth Percentiles

There is a very large distribution of net worth between the wealthiest and poorest households. Let’s look at a subset of brackets and summary statistics so you can get a feel for net worth disparity in America.

Net worth deciles in the United States — Net Worth Deciles in America

What is the average net worth in the United States?

The average net worth is $692,100. The median net worth is $97,300.

Who are the top 1% by net worth?

In 2016, we estimate that you need $10,374,030.10 in wealth to be in the top one percent. To be in the top 10%, you’d need $1,182,390.36. Here’s a look at our estimates for the wealth of the top one percent in the United States in 2016:

Net Worth Percentile	2016 Dollar Cutoff
90.0%	$1,182,390.36
95.0%	$2,377,985.22
99.0%	$10,374,030.10
99.5%	$16,115,373.00
99.9%	$43,090,281.00

For the top .5% and .1% note that our estimates are hazier – consider our 95% confidence interval to be over a million dollars in either direction. Again, though, the .5% and .1% estimates are in the right ballpark of Emmanual Saez and Gabriel Zucman’s estimates for 2012 with four years of growth in between.

What is the Net Worth to be Wealthy?

Depending on where you live, a net worth of around $2,500,000 is wealthy. This is around the top 5% of all households in net worth, and can sustain around $100,000 in spending for 30 years.

What is Net Worth?

Net worth is a snapshot of value if you cancel out a household’s assets and debts. You can calculate your own if you add up all your assets – home to cars to accounts – and subtract your debts – mortgage, student loans, and the like.

Track your own net worth using the tool Personal Capital – for free. They automate the net worth tracking process and have a retirement planning calculator to help you project future wealth.

Net Worth Comparison of 2016 and 2013

We’ve selected some important net worth percentages for 2017 and 2014. This data comes from 2017 Federal Reserve Surveys of Consumer Finances, and surveys were first conducted the previous year.

Stated simply, data is from wealth snapshots at “sometime” in 2016 and 2013, respectively.

Net Worth Brackets or Wealth Brackets for the United States and One Percent — Selected Net Worth Brackets for the United States

If you’d like more exact monetary statistics, try our individual income percentile calculator, and stats on income brackets and the top 1%.

There is a lot to like in the distribution itself.

Unlike the recent income percentile breakdown, every Wealth Bracket saw an improvement between 2013 and 2016. That’s right – across the board, at a percentile resolution, the wealth dollar breakpoint for all net worth brackets increased.

Wealth Bracket Changes from 2013 from 2013 to 2016 in the United States — Absolute Wealth Bracket Changes (Log Scale), US, 2013 – 2016

The above chart is a log scale; here are the absolute changes for the top 5% of wealth brackets:

Net Worth Percentile	2013 SCF	2016 SCF	Change in Breakpoint	Increase
95	$1,924,942.64	$2,377,985.22	$453,042.58	23.54%
96	$2,401,849.00	$2,798,189.12	$396,340.12	16.50%
97	$3,185,849.01	$3,703,775.80	$517,926.79	16.26%
98	$4,506,369.69	$5,816,220.17	$1,309,850.48	29.07%
99	$8,102,708.22	$10,374,030.10	$2,271,321.89	28.03%

Net Worth Based Accredited Investors in America

To invest in angel and private equity funds, venture capital, hedge funds, , and other private placements an investor is required to be an ‘Accredited Investor’. In the US, having net worth of $1,000,000+ not including primary home equity is the most common way to qualify.

There are roughly 12.4 million accredited investor households, and around 11.3 million qualify through net worth. Investors can also qualify through individual or household income.

See the math on the number of accredited investors in America.

Methodology for 2016 United States Net Worth Brackets

Data for this article comes from the 2013 and 2016 Surveys of Consumer Finances from the Federal Reserve. Special thanks is owed to Anthony Damico for his lodown package for R, which we are using to analyze the 2013 and 2016 datasets. Please see his Analyze Survey Data Free book which details SCF analysis and more in R.

As mentioned, the Federal Reserve estimates a representative size of 125,981,700 United States households for this survey. The 2016 survey includes 6,254 families in the private dataset. The public dataset removes 6 families (leaving 6,248) for privacy purposes. The Fed sweeps data for privacy by releasing ‘separate’ datasets with replicate weights for all the variables. Our estimates are using the linear interpolation algorithm in the svyquantile function from the R survey package.

See the Analyze Survey Data book for more information; for going beyond the data you see it’s worth pulling down the dataset on your own.

Other notes: net worth does not include periodic income streams such as pensions or Social Security. Perhaps a future article will attempt to account for these; watch this space, if we model income streams as net worth in the future we’ll link out.

Please note the data is not longitudinal. In short, that means the surveys aren’t answered by the same families in 2013 and 2016.

It’s impossible to draw specific conclusions on the net worth changes for households in 2013 households. It is, however, possible to see how the static snapshot of net worth distribution changes (or, as the case may be, for inequality measures).

Conclusions on United States Net Worth Brackets for 2017

It’s heartening to see the across the board improvements in every net worth bracket from 2013 to 2016. While the broadest gains went to the top centiles, we saw improvement all over the net worth distribution. Let’s hope for an even greater improvement in 2019.

We’re big fans of net worth – it’s the most important number to track for your finances. To make it easy, try the free tool Personal Capital to keep an eye on your debts and assets.

Now that you’ve seen the static shot, try comparing with the data dynamically. Try our American net worth percentile calculator and net worth by age calculator. You can also check out income in America for everyone or by age.