The average American’s net worth is $620,654, but that number means little. Here’s the figure that counts

As of 2024, the mean American had a nett worthy of $620,654, according to a caller study connected planetary wealthiness by UBS. (1) But if that fig sounds amazingly precocious and disconnected from your lived experience, there’s a crushed for that.

Averages are calculated by taking a full magnitude and dividing it by the fig of individuals successful a dataset. However, this metric is easy skewed by a fewer individuals who are implicit outliers.

For instance, if you (with the mean American nett worth) and Elon Musk participate an elevator together, the mean nett worthy connected that elevator — astatine least, astatine the clip of this penning — is astir $224 billion. (2)

Your idiosyncratic nett worthy whitethorn beryllium obscurity adjacent to that, but the information that determination are lone 2 individuals successful this script means the fig is skewed upwards — and you whitethorn cognize fewer radical wrong your person ellipse oregon household who person $620,654 successful full wealth, contempt what the study says.

With this successful mind, UBS besides tracked different measurement that could beryllium person to world for mundane Americans: median wealth.

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Unlike averages, median calculations are not skewed by a fewer outliers. Instead of taking full wealthiness crossed a state and dividing it by the country’s full population, median wealthiness is calculated by arranging each adults successful either ascending oregon descending bid of nett worthy and picking the idiosyncratic precisely successful the mediate for a fairer representation.

In different words, if you person median wealth, past precisely 50% of the state has little than you and 50% has much than you.

As of 2024, median nett worthy successful America is conscionable $124,041, according to UBS. That’s an astonishing 5 times little than the mean nett worthy of $620,654.

In fact, by this measure, America is lone the 15th wealthiest state successful the world, lagging down Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Italy. By comparison, the U.S. is the 2nd wealthiest state based connected mean wealth.

This immense spread betwixt mean and median wealthiness is simply a reflection of America’s exceptionally precocious wealthiness inequality.

At the extremity of 2024, much than two-thirds (67%) of the full household wealthiness crossed the state was held by conscionable the apical 10% of households, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (3) Meanwhile, the bottommost 50% of households clasp conscionable 2.5% of full wealth.