The oldest American families came out of the last three years with noticeably more wealth, while the households just behind them lost ground. The Federal Reserve’s 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances puts median net worth at $504,900 for families headed by someone 75 or older. For families headed by someone 65 to 74, the median was $431,300.
Both numbers appear in the Fed’s summary report, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025, and both are stated in 2025 dollars. The 75-and-older median stood at $367,300 in 2022, a rise of 37 percent after inflation. The 65-to-74 median was $448,600 three years earlier, so it slipped 4 percent.
Why the oldest group pulled ahead
The Fed says families older than 75 “saw substantial gains in both median and mean net worth,” at 37 percent and 10 percent. A median marks the middle family, with half above and half below. A mean is pulled upward by very wealthy households. The wider jump in the median suggests the gain reached the typical household in that age group, not just the top.
Income moved the same way. Median family income for the 75-and-older group rose from $53,800 in 2022 to $66,800 in 2025, a 24 percent increase. Families headed by someone 65 to 74 saw a 4 percent rise, from $66,600 to $69,400.
The survey also has a limit worth knowing. The Fed describes the SCF as a cross-sectional survey, meaning it interviews a fresh sample each time. In 2025 the Fed spoke with 4,367 families, down from 4,602 in 2022. The 75-and-older families of 2025 are not the same people who were 72 or 73 in 2022, so the numbers compare age groups, not one set of households aging.
What the 65-to-74 slip means for households in that range
Anyone in the 65-to-74 range who is weighing their own balance sheet against these figures should treat $431,300 as a midpoint, not a target. Half of the families in that age group hold less, and the Fed’s own table shows the group got poorer in real terms between surveys while the country as a whole did not.
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The national picture is mixed. According to the Fed’s October 9 announcement of the results, real median net worth for all families rose 2 percent to $215,900, while real mean net worth rose 7 percent to $1.24 million. The gap between those two figures shows how much the largest fortunes lift the average.
Age matters as much as anything else in the data. Median net worth for families headed by someone under 35 fell 23 percent to $33,000. Families headed by someone 45 to 54 slipped 6 percent to $253,700. Families headed by someone 55 to 64 rose 3 percent to $411,900. The two oldest groups sit at the top of the ladder, but only one of them moved up.
Where retirement wealth gets drawn down
Several features of retirement can pull a household’s net worth down even when markets are kind. Traditional IRA owners must start taking withdrawals once they reach age 73, and the IRS says the first distribution is due by April 1 of the year after the owner turns 73. Those withdrawals count as taxable income, and spending them shrinks what the survey measures.
Health costs are another drain. Medicare Part A and Part B carry premiums, deductibles and coinsurance, and Medicare Savings Programs can pay some or all of those costs for people who meet income and asset limits. The programs are run by each state, and people apply through the state, not through Medicare itself.
The Fed’s report singles out “families that are nearly or recently retired” as a group that “saw some declines” in net worth. That description sits alongside the 65-to-74 result, a range where many households are in the first years of living off savings.
Debt and stocks fill in the rest of the picture
The press release adds two warnings for households of any age. The share of families whose debt payments take more than 40 percent of their income rose from 6.5 percent to 8.6 percent. Stock ownership slipped from 58 percent of families to 56 percent, though the median holding among those who own stock climbed 36 percent, from $56,900 to $77,400.
Housing is the other pillar. The release puts the homeownership rate at 66 percent, about unchanged from 2022, and the median net housing value for homeowners at $230,000, up from $218,900. The Fed does not break out housing equity by age in the bulletin, so no figure ties the oldest group’s gain to its homes.
Is a household’s own number above or below these medians?
The summary report does not name a single cause for the 75-and-older group’s 37 percent gain. What it does show is the result: higher median incomes, a median holding of stock that grew among shareholders, and a homeowner median that rose to $230,000 left the oldest households with a median above half a million dollars.
For the 65-to-74 group, the open question is whether the 4 percent decline marks a pause or a trend. The Fed describes the survey as normally triennial, so the answer waits for the next one. Until then, the comparison the Fed supplies is $431,300 at the middle of one group and $504,900 at the middle of the group above it.
Where does a household in the 65-to-74 range stand?
A median of $431,300 says little about which costs are quietly shrinking one household’s balance sheet. Medicare premiums, property taxes and heating bills come out of the same wealth the Fed measured, and several programs that help with them have to be applied for.
The Benefits Checklist covers 11 benefit programs, from Medicare Savings Programs to senior property-tax breaks, and lists the 2026 income limits for each. This story is about wealth, not benefits, so the turn is plain: the checklist is for the cost side of the ledger. It also comes with a 50-state phone directory.
Get The Benefits Checklist with 11 programs that ease costs for households aged 65 and up →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 15 Steps to Stop the Scams That Took $7.7 Billion From Seniors
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
