Why Under-35s Saw Their Median Net Worth Drop 23% While Families 75 And Older Gained 37%

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The Federal Reserve’s report Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025 draws on the 2025 edition of its Survey of Consumer Finances. It found that families younger than 35 saw median net worth decrease 23% to $33,000, while mean net worth fell 33% to $135,400. The comparison runs from the 2022 survey to the 2025 survey. Every figure is in 2025 dollars and reports family balance sheets as they stood when the 2025 interviews took place. Over the same period, the median for families 75 or more rose 37%.

What a 23% Drop in Young Family Wealth Measures

The survey defines net worth as the difference between families’ gross assets and their liabilities. A family’s age is the age of its reference person, so a family belongs to the youngest bracket when its reference person is under 35. That bracket made up 19.6% of families in 2025. All figures are adjusted for inflation with the CPI-U-RS, so the drop reflects lost buying power as well as dollars.

The median shows what the typical young family holds. The mean shows the average, and a handful of large balance sheets can pull it around. In this survey, both measures fell. The median went from $42,700 in 2022 to $33,000 in 2025.

The Fed says these declines were “primarily driven by the unwinding of business equity gains between 2019 and 2022.” In plain terms, many young families reported big jumps in the value of their privately held businesses during the pandemic years, and much of that value has since disappeared. Across all families that own a business, the median value of business equity fell 23%, from $98,500 to $75,400.

A Pandemic-Era Windfall Reversed While Retirees Pulled Ahead

For all families combined, real median net worth rose 2% to $215,900 and the mean rose 7% to $1,241,500. The Fed calls that growth much slower than the growth between 2019 and 2022. Young families gave back more than anyone else.

The oldest group is the contrast. Families 75 or more saw median net worth rise to $504,900 and mean net worth climb 10%. The Fed attributes the jump “primarily” to “an increase in the value of retirement accounts.” As a result, this group had the highest net worth of any age bracket, in contrast with the previous few survey years.

The other age groups were mixed:

The report sums it up this way: for the middle age groups, “changes in median net worth ranged from some declines to modest gains, while mean net worth mostly grew.” Typical families in the 45 to 54 and 65 to 74 brackets lost ground too.

Where Young Families Can Rebuild Before the Next Survey

The asset behind the oldest group’s gains is one young families already use more and more. The share of under-35 families with defined contribution plans or IRAs rose from 42% in 2016 to near 50% in 2025, the largest increase of any age group. According to the Fed, retirement plans add to net worth through lower taxes on savings and increased compensation from employer contributions. In practice, that means contributing at least enough to collect any employer match.

Diversification matters just as much. The young families that lost the most had wealth concentrated in private business stakes, which can be revalued sharply in a single survey cycle. Broad, diversified retirement holdings did the reverse for older families.

Housing is the toughest gap to close. The report found the median home was worth more than 4.5 times the median family income. More recent data show prices still rising: the Case-Shiller National Home Price Index reached 337.3 in July 2026, its highest reading in data going back to late 2023. That helps current owners and raises the price of entry for first-time buyers.

Bottom Line

The 23% drop in the 2025 survey reflects pandemic-era private business gains being reversed, and those were always fragile. Retirement accounts drove the oldest families’ gains, and they remain the most reliable wealth builder available to younger family. Young families who keep raising their participation will be the ones to watch when the Fed releases its next triennial survey.

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