Two households can earn the same $120,000 a year and have wildly different net worths. One has $40,000 after a decade of high rent and car payments; the other has $600,000. Income is what you make. Net worth is what you kept.
That's why comparing your net worth against people who earn what you do is more revealing than comparing against people your age. Here are the official numbers by income bracket, from the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.
Net worth by income percentile in 2026
The Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) groups US households by where their before-tax income falls relative to everyone else. The figures below are from the latest published survey (2022, released October 2023), which remains the most recent official data. Results from the 2025 survey are expected in late 2026.
| Income percentile | Approximate household income | Median net worth | Average net worth* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom 20% | Under ~$28,000 | $14,000 | ~$164,000 |
| 20th–40th | ~$28,000–$53,000 | $71,000 | ~$251,000 |
| 40th–60th | ~$53,000–$90,000 | $159,300 | ~$374,000 |
| 60th–80th | ~$90,000–$150,000 | $307,200 | ~$690,000 |
| 80th–90th | ~$150,000–$220,000 | $747,000 | ~$1.22 million |
| Top 10% | Over ~$220,000 | $2,556,200 | ~$6.63 million |
| All households | Median ~$70,000 | $192,700 | $1,063,700 |
Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (2022 survey, 2022 dollars). Income cutoffs are rounded.
Read the median, not the average
Use the median. The average in every bracket is pulled upward by a small number of very wealthy households, including retirees with low current income but large portfolios. That's why the "average" household in the bottom 20% appears to have $164,000 when the typical one has $14,000. The median is the middle household: half above, half below.
These are household figures. A couple's combined income and assets count as one household, so a single earner should compare against a slightly lower bar.
The pattern in the data
Net worth doesn't rise in step with income. It rises much faster.
- Moving from the middle bracket ($53,000–$90,000) to the next one up ($90,000–$150,000) roughly doubles median net worth, from $159,300 to $307,200.
- Moving from the 80th–90th bracket to the top 10% more than triples it, from $747,000 to $2.56 million.
- The top 10% of earners hold a median net worth about 13 times that of the middle-income household.
Three things drive that curve:
- Savings rate scales with income. Fixed costs like housing, food, and transport don't grow as fast as pay does, so higher earners can save a larger share, not just a larger amount.
- Higher earners own more appreciating assets. Home equity, retirement accounts, and brokerage holdings are concentrated in the top brackets, and those assets compound.
- Income and net worth reinforce each other. Investment income shows up as income. Households with large portfolios tend to land in the top income bracket partly because of their wealth.
Are you ahead or behind for your income?
Find your bracket in the table, then compare your own net worth to the median. A rough guide:
- Well below the median for your income? You're earning enough to build wealth, but something is absorbing it. That's usually housing costs, debt payments, or lifestyle spending that rose with each raise. The fix is mechanical: find the leak, then automate savings before the money reaches checking.
- Near the median? You're keeping pace with peers. The next lever is usually investment allocation. Cash and low-yield savings at this stage cost you decades of compounding.
- Above the median? You're converting income to wealth more efficiently than most people who earn what you do. The focus shifts to protecting and compounding: tax efficiency, diversification, and avoiding large unforced errors.
Remember that income bracket is only half the picture. A 28-year-old in the 60th–80th bracket with $150,000 is well ahead of schedule; a 58-year-old in the same bracket with the same amount is behind. For the age view, see our net worth percentile by age breakdown.
A quick formula that combines both
The classic benchmark from The Millionaire Next Door multiplies age by income and divides by ten:
Expected net worth = (age × pre-tax income) ÷ 10
A 40-year-old earning $100,000 would be "on track" at $400,000. It's crude, and it overstates the target for younger people, but it's a useful sanity check because it accounts for both how long you've been earning and how much. We break down where it works and where it fails in our net worth-to-income ratio guide.
Why income comparisons matter more than age comparisons
Age tells you how long someone has had to accumulate. Income tells you how much raw material they had to work with. Two people the same age with a 3x income difference aren't meaningful comparisons for each other.
The income view also exposes the most common wealth-building failure: lifestyle inflation. Plenty of households in the top 10% of income sit well below the $2.56 million median for their bracket. High earners who spend most of what they make end up with the net worth of a middle earner, and our net worth vs income piece walks through how that happens.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median net worth for a household earning $100,000?
About $307,000. A $100,000 household income falls in the 60th–80th income percentile, where the median net worth is $307,200 and the average is roughly $690,000.
What income puts you in the top 10%?
Roughly $220,000 in household income before taxes. The median net worth in that bracket is $2.56 million.
Does net worth include home equity?
Yes. These figures count your home's market value as an asset and the mortgage as a liability. For middle-income households, home equity is often the single largest component.
Why is the average so much higher than the median in the bottom brackets?
Retirees. Many older households have low current income but substantial assets accumulated over a lifetime, which drags the average up while the typical low-income household has very little.
Where does this data come from?
The Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years. The 2022 survey (published October 2023) is the latest. The next release, covering 2025, is expected in late 2026, and we'll update this page when it lands.
The bottom line
Your income sets the ceiling on how fast you can build wealth. Your savings rate and asset allocation decide how close to that ceiling you get. The benchmark that matters is whether your net worth is climbing faster than your peers' at the same income, and that means tracking the number over time, not just checking it once.
NetTrack connects your accounts, calculates your net worth in minutes, and shows you exactly what moved it each month. Start free at nettrack.me.
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