Affluent and Older Americans Got Much Richer in Postpandemic Years

Attention Millennials and Gen Z. I'm sorry! No I mean that. I wish there was something I could do, short of giving you any of my sheet. It's a cold world.

Affluent and Older Americans Got Much Richer in Postpandemic Years

Federal Reserve study finds overall median net worth rose 2% between 2022 and 2025

By Rachel Louise Ensign, WSJ

Updated Oct. 9, 2026

The typical American family got a little wealthier in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, while well-off and older Americans got much richer.

Median family net worth rose 2% from 2022 to 2025 to about $216,000, adjusted for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, which was released on Friday. The survey comes out every three years and is considered the gold standard for measuring household wealth.

Overall wealth gains slowed markedly from the prior period from 2019 to 2022, when wealth increased 37%, the most in the 30-plus year history of the survey, thanks to rising stock and home prices.

Median wealth for a family in the top 10% of earners increased 31%, while wealth decreased for the bottom 40% of earners.

Wealth increased 37% for Americans 75 and older, while it declined 23% for people under 35. During this period, people 75 and older became the richest age group, with a median net worth of $505,000. Wealth is measured as a family’s assets, like stocks and home equity, minus their liabilities, like mortgages and credit-card debt.

The new data paints a picture of a two-speed economy, where older and affluent people are thriving, and persistent inflation is making others feel pessimistic about their finances and the economy broadly. Recent company earnings’ reports and consumer sentiment surveys have shown the same economic divide.

The University of Michigan on Friday reported its consumer sentiment index this month reached its second-lowest level in history. Owning stocks can blunt the pain — sentiment among people in the top third by stock ownership is actually up since the end of 2022, while sentiment for those in the bottom two-thirds, and those who don’t own stocks at all, has fallen.

Indeed, the gains for the higher-earning and older groups were likely due to the fact that they tend to be more invested than others in the stock market, which has boomed in recent years. The S&P 500 rose 78% from the end of 2022 to the end of 2025, and it has continued to rise this year, likely minting further wealth gains for these Americans.

Older Americans used to get much poorer when they got older and started spending down their savings. “This is totally reversed now,” said Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University.

Many people 75 and older bought homes and stocks decades ago and have benefited from the appreciation of those assets. “They hit things at the right time,” Wolff said.

Some demographic groups that typically have less wealth saw big declines. Median net worth for Black families fell by 25%, while it increased for all other racial and ethnic groups. It fell by 55% for people without a high-school diploma, the largest percentage decline for this group in the survey’s history.

The survey also found that families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since 2010. The share of families reporting being behind on loan payments jumped from 12% in 2022 to 20% in 2025. But the size of a family’s typical debt load remained unchanged from the prior survey.

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