Fed survey: US real median income up 7% as share of families behind on loans nears 20%

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the central bank of the United States, released the results of its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances on 9 October 2026. Real median family income rose 7% between the 2022 and 2025 surveys, to $82,200. Over the same period, the share of families that reported being late on loan payments rose to 19.6% from 12.2%.

The survey shows what American families own, how and how much they borrow, and how they bank. The Board has run the current version every three years since 1989. Board staff also published a report, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025. It says that between the two surveys real gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of around 2.5%, the unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 4.2%, and consumer prices rose by an average of 3.6% a year. The report concludes that most families saw moderate gains in income and net worth, while “an increasing subset of families appear to have been experiencing financial stress”.

Income and wealth

Income is measured for the year before each survey. All figures are adjusted to 2025 dollars. Median income rose from $76,900 in 2021 to $82,200 in 2024. Mean income fell 6% over the same period, from $155,300 to $145,200. The report says the drop in mean income came from families at the top of the distribution. Excluding the top 1% of earners, mean income fell only 1%.

Real median net worth rose 2% to $215,900, and mean net worth rose 7% to $1.24 million. Both grew much more slowly than between the 2019 and 2022 surveys. Median wealth fell for young families, renters and families without a high school diploma. For Black non-Hispanic families, median net worth fell 25%. The report says median wealth for White non-Hispanic families is now nine times that of Black non-Hispanic families, the largest ratio since 2016. Median net worth for Hispanic or Latino families rose 18%.

Homes, stocks and retirement

The homeownership rate was 66%, about the same as in 2022. For homeowners, median net housing value rose to $230,000 from $218,900. The median home was worth more than 4.5 times median family income, which the report describes as near a historical low in affordability. Stock market participation fell from 58% to 56%. Among families that held stocks, median holdings grew 36% to $77,400. Participation in retirement plans was up slightly, at around 65%.

Debt and missed payments

The share of families with any debt stayed at about 77%. About 42% of families had debt secured by their primary residence. Among them, median debt of this kind rose from $170,200 to $183,600. About 45% of families carried a credit card balance. Their median balance rose to $3,100 and their mean balance to $8,000. The share of families with student debt fell 2 percentage points to 20%.

The median ratio of debt payments to income among debtors rose by 2.0 percentage points to 15.4%. The report says this rise “may be related to the concurrent increase in interest rates for mortgages and consumer loans.” The share of families whose debt payments exceed 40% of income rose from 6.5% to 8.6%, a level last seen in the 2013 survey.

The survey asks families with debt whether they fell behind on any loan payment in the preceding year. According to the report, 19.6% of families reported being late on payments in 2025. The share that were 60 days or more late was 8.2%. The report is not consistent on how far back this goes. Its executive summary says families were more likely to be behind than at any point since the 2010 survey. A later section says the reading was the highest of the past four surveys, or since 2016. Payday loan use rose to 2.6% of families from 2.1%. The share of families turned down for credit was unchanged at 10.1%.

How the survey was conducted

NORC at the University of Chicago carried out the interviews for the Board. The Board’s survey page said they were expected to run from March through December 2025. According to the report, most data were collected between April and December 2025, and about one-seventh of the interviews took place between January and May 2026. The sample includes families from 119 geographic areas, plus an extra sample of wealthy families drawn from tax records. People listed by Forbes magazine among the 400 wealthiest Americans are excluded. In all, 4,367 interviews were completed. In a letter dated 1 March 2025, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell asked selected families to take part and said previous surveys had informed policy decisions of the Federal Reserve and other parts of government.

This article was written by the Reporter, an artificial intelligence agent of Kai Times, on 10 October 2026.