Are you rich?
See how your net worth stacks up against your peers and the country
Being rich isn’t about the money you make — it’s about the money you already have. Tell us about your finances, and we’ll tell you how you fit into the picture of American wealth.
The main measure of wealth is net worth: the total value of your household’s assets (like houses and savings), minus debts (like mortgages and student loans).
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The middle half of Americans have a net worth between $27,000 and $659,000. About 8 percent of households had a negative net worth (they owed more than they owned), while about 1 in 10 holds more than $2 million.
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So what counts as rich? That depends on who you ask.
There aren’t solid definitions for a word as loaded as “rich.” Wealth cutoffs for terms like “upper wealth tier” and “high net worth individual” range from $770,800 to more than $2 million.
Your household’s net worth does not meet any of those definitions of rich.
That’s how you compare to the nation as a whole. But how do you stack up to households like yours?
How your wealth compares to peers
Most people have a low net worth when they are young, accumulate wealth until retirement and then spend it down. Households with college-educated people tend to be wealthier, as are households where spouses or partners live together.
[Not Rich? Take this quiz to see how to build your wealth.]
Tell us more about yourself to see how you compare to others like you.
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Your household’s net worth is higher than about NaN percent of households like yours, where the head of the household is aged 50-64, has a college degree and lives with their spouse or partner.
Research suggests that the gap persists even after controlling for age and education because Black and Hispanic people tend to have lower incomes and are less likely to receive familial financial support or invest in the stock market. The persistent Black-White wealth gap is also rooted in slavery, which created a disparity so extreme that researchers estimate it would be nearly impossible to close even if financial opportunities were equal ever since.
How your income fits in
Like wealth, income tends to grow with age before dropping off in retirement. College-educated people also tend to have higher incomes.
[Are you in the American middle class?]
Income and wealth often go hand in hand, but not always. An early career surgeon saddled with student loans may have a high income but low net worth. A nonprofit analyst with a family inheritance may be at the opposite end.
Tell us your income and we’ll tell you how your income and wealth align — and how that compares to peers.
What is your annual household income?
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Percentage of households like yours in each wealth and income group
income
income
income
net worth
net worth
The building blocks of wealth
The makeup of a rich family’s wealth is not the same as a poor family’s wealth, and that matters for financial stability and opportunity.
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Tell us more about your assets to see how you compare to others like you.
Average percentage of assets held by each wealth group
Cash
Primary house
Vehicles
Retirement
Investments
Other assets
The wealthier the household, the more likely their assets are making money for them.
Those at the lowest end hold most of their wealth in vehicles, which almost always lose value over time, and cash, which buys less as prices rise.
Homeownership is an iconic part of middle-class American life and the largest asset for Americans in the middle ranks of wealth. Because most homes become more valuable over time, homeownership is also how most Americans build wealth.
However, homeownership doesn’t guarantee financial stability. Mortgages are the largest source of debt for about half of Americans in the middle ranks of wealth, and a home’s value can’t be spent without selling it.
The richest Americans keep their wealth in investments, businesses and other real estate on top of their home — assets that can increase the wealth they already have.
How the wealthiest Americans compare
The typical net worth of American families grew at a record pace between 2019 and 2022, with gains shared among nearly every economic and demographic group in the country.
However, more than a third of private wealth in the United States is still concentrated among the richest 1 percent of households, creating a level of individual net worth that can be difficult to fathom.
The difference between the wealth of someone in the 25th and 75th percentile is large, but that gap is minor when comparing the wealthiest Americans to everyone else.
Your net worth places you in the NaNth percentile of wealth. Here’s what net worth looks like across the range of wealth in America.
correction
A previous version of this story misstated wealth levels in specific racial groups. While the numbers were correct, the survey sample size was too small to report those numbers as an accurate reflection of the population. We've updated the story with broader racial categories (White and non-White) to create larger and more reliable sample sizes.
About this story
This story uses microdata from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, accessed via the University of California, Berkeley’s Survey Documentation and Analysis.
Our definitions for “rich” and similar concepts come from the Pew Research Center’s definition of “upper wealth tier” (net worth four times the median); Gallup polling about the net worth Americans would need to feel rich from 2011 and 2003 ($1 million, adjusted to $1.394 million for inflation); the definition of “high net worth individual” used by the Securities and Exchange Commission on form ADV for investment advisers (over $2.2 million in net worth); and the definitions of top 10 percent, one percent and 0.1 percent of net worth found in the Survey of Consumer Finances.