The Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances revealed a striking split: Median net worth rose roughly 38% for households headed by someone 75 or older between 2022 and 2025, while falling 23% for those headed by someone under 35. Both figures account for inflation, according to an analysis by Nick Maggiulli, chief data officer at Ritholtz Wealth Management and author of The Wealth Ladder.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the age split in a short post on what it called “the gold standard for measuring household wealth,” which the central bank releases every three years. Americans 55 and over now hold roughly $140 trillion, about three-quarters of the nation’s net worth, Fortune reported this month, citing a Bank of America Institute analysis of the Fed data.
The oldest households finished the period with a median net worth of $504,600, up from $366,288 in 2022, measured in 2025 dollars. For the youngest households, it fell from $42,725 to $32,820. The oldest group now has roughly 15x the wealth of the youngest, compared with about 9x three years earlier.
Across all families, inflation-adjusted median net worth rose just 2% between 2022 and 2025, reaching $215,900. That modest national gain concealed sharply different experiences at opposite ends of the age spectrum.
The findings also echo an argument Yale law and history professor Samuel Moyn made in an interview with Fortune this summer about his book, Gerontocracy in America: The concentration of wealth among older Americans is not merely a matter of who has had longer to save. In his account, it also shapes whose interests the economy and political system serve.
Moyn describes an “oldigarchy,” in which older, disproportionately wealthy Americans hold outsize influence. His book argues that “aging Americans control the biggest bank accounts and stock portfolios,” and that “the old rich have pulled away from everyone else.”
Yes. We had the good sense to not take out enormous student loans for degrees that did not lead to jobs of any value. Some of this was not really good sense. Almost any degree except maybe art or sociology would likely get you an adequate job in 1970. Education was also so absurdly expensive that you needed the 1970s equivalent of a $100,000 student loan to start out adult life.
We had some other advantages. Lots of good jobs did not require a college degree back then. Creeping credentialism and the contempt for technical jobs had not closed other avenues from serious consideration.
The harsh reality, however, is that generally getting older makes you richer. We bought a Sears refrigerator in 1976. It was still working into the 2000s. Some of the dishes that we received as wedding presents in 1980 are still in use, although not many.
Still, time heals most financial mistakes if you stay invested and do not waste on trying to look like The Illustrated Man.
I suspect as us Boomers go bust and our assets enrich our kids, this will even out a bit. Unless the young whiners decide we need to go full Communist.
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