Net worth by age is the benchmark everyone secretly checks, and the numbers are confusing because the average and the median tell two different stories. The average is pulled up by a small number of very wealthy households, while the median shows the typical household, and the gap between them is enormous. Knowing both numbers, and which one to compare yourself with, is the first step to using the benchmark usefully instead of letting it discourage you.

Start with the rough benchmarks for 2026, based on the Federal Reserve's household surveys. Households under 35 have a median net worth in the low tens of thousands and an average several times higher. The 35 to 44 group has a median in the low six figures. The 45 to 54 group has a median around 200,000 dollars, the 55 to 64 group around 300,000, and the 65 to 74 group peaks near 400,000 before declining as retirees draw down. These are medians, so half of households in each group are below them, and the averages run roughly two to three times higher.

The gap between average and median matters because it reveals how wealth concentrates. A handful of households with millions in assets pull the average far above the typical experience, so comparing yourself to the average is comparing yourself to a number almost nobody actually has. The median is the honest benchmark: if your net worth is at or above the median for your age, you are ahead of half the country, whatever the headlines say.

Net worth itself is simple arithmetic: everything you own minus everything you owe. Assets include cash, investments, retirement accounts and home equity. Debts include mortgages, student loans, car loans and credit card balances. The single most common mistake is forgetting a debt: a household with 50,000 dollars in investments and 60,000 in student loans has a negative net worth, not a 50,000 dollar one. Calculate it honestly once, and the number becomes a useful scoreboard rather than a source of anxiety.

Catching up is mostly a function of the savings rate and time, not of income. The households that close the gap fastest do three things: they raise their savings rate by one percentage point every few months until it reaches 20% or more, they invest the difference in low-cost index funds rather than leaving it in cash, and they avoid the two wealth killers, high-interest debt and lifestyle creep. A household earning 70,000 dollars and saving 20% will pass a household earning 120,000 and saving 5% within a decade, because the savings rate compounds while the income gap does not.

Age changes the strategy. In your 20s, the priority is building the habit and capturing the employer match, because every dollar invested now has forty years to compound. In your 30s, the priority is raising the savings rate as income grows, before lifestyle creep absorbs the raises. In your 40s and 50s, the priority is maximising retirement contributions and paying down the mortgage, because the runway is shorter. The benchmark is the same at every age: save more than the median household, invest it simply, and let time do the work.

Check your net worth once a quarter, not once a day, and compare yourself to the median for your age group, not to the average and not to social media. If you are below the median, the fix is rarely a higher income: it is a higher savings rate, a lower debt load, and a simple investment plan you can sustain for decades. The benchmark is a mirror, not a verdict, and the only comparison that matters is with your own number last year.