Here’s The Average Net Worth of Each Class: How Does Yours Compare?

The median net worth ranges from a few thousand dollars for lower-class families to more than $7 million for families in the upper class. However, the vast majority of Americans fall somewhere between these numbers in the middle class. 

Knowing where you are on the net worth scale can be helpful in assessing your own finances. But no matter where you fall, there’s an opportunity to increase your net worth and improve your overall personal finances.

Key Takeaways

• The lower class has a median net worth of about $3,500, while the upper class has one of about $7.81 million.
• The middle class has a median net worth that ranges from $93,300 to $1.04 million.
• Net worth is just one measure we can use to classify families by lower, middle, and upper class, and it’s a valuable tool for measuring your financial progress.

Average Net Worth by Class

There are several different ways we could define the various financial classes in the United States. While we sometimes categorize them by income, we can also look specifically at net worth. Of course, there’s no official definition of the lower, middle, and upper classes, but we can generally categorize them based on certain percentiles.

Lower Class

Families in the lowest 25% of net worth have a median net worth of $3,500, according to 2022 data from the Federal Reserve (the most recent data available, as of publication). The mean (also known as the average) net worth for the same families is -$5,300.

Important

Keep in mind that while there’s often a correlation between net worth and income, that’s not always the case.

For example, some people in the lower class by net worth could have low incomes. Others likely have higher incomes but also higher amounts of debt.

Middle Class

Families in the middle class—we’ll define that as those with net worths in the 25th to 90th percentiles—have median net worths ranging from $93,300 to $1,036,200. They have mean net worths ranging from $98,800 to $1,102,400. That’s clearly a wide range, but we could break it up by separating this group into lower middle, middle, and upper middle classes. Here’s what those ranges would look like:

Upper Class

U.S. families with net worths in the top 10% have a median net worth of $3,794,600 and a mean net worth of $7,810,500.

Note

The average is considerably higher than the median for this class bracket, as some extremely high-net-worth individuals skew the average.

The Bottom Line

Net worth can be a useful way of defining the lower, middle, and upper classes. Median net worths range from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars, but most Americans fall somewhere in between there. 

Just remember that your net worth isn’t a reflection of you as a person, but it can be a valuable tool for tracking your financial progress as you pay off debt and increase your income and investments.