Last week, a chart from a WSJ article went viral. The chart showed that Americans under 35 suffered a greater than 20% decrease in real (inflation-adjusted) net worth between 2022 and 2025, while those 75 and older benefited from a nearly 40% increase.
These data points fed into the popular memes of the K‑shaped economy and Total Boomer Luxury Communism, the latter of which has merit, at least insofar as entitlements are concerned. But does the data in the chart really support these commonly held beliefs about the economy? Does it really demonstrate, for example, that older people are getting richer at the expense of younger people?
A careful look at the data suggests not.
The data from the chart comes from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which is released every three years. Data for 2025 was released last week, which informed the WSJ chart.
The chart’s data is not incorrect, but the chart is missing context and valuable additional information. The SCF is a survey, so data points from it that represent all Americans by age bracket are estimates within a range of possible values, represented by confidence intervals. When these confidence intervals are calculated and shown alongside the median values reported in the chart, the picture becomes somewhat more complicated. (See Figure 1.)
For starters, zero percent lies within the confidence interval for Americans under 35, which means that the decrease in real net worth for that group between 2022 and 2025 is not statistically different from zero. The same is true for all other age groups except for those 75 and older. So, only those in the latter category had a statistically significant change in real net worth according to this survey.
Since the median net worth change was statistically insignificant for most groups from 2022 to 2025, it may be informative to look at a longer time horizon. Looking at 2019 to 2025, for instance, all groups except those in the 45 to 54 age range had statistically significant real net worth increases. Notably, the under-35 group had the highest percentage increase in real net worth of all age groups for this longer horizon. (See Figure 2.)
A major difference between the median result for those under 35 compared to 75 and older is the median family in the latter group owns a home, while the former does not. Real median home equity for those 75 and older increased significantly from 2019 to 2025, by 49%. However, when looking at real median net worth excluding home equity, SCF data does not show a statistically significant increase. Meanwhile, Americans under 35 enjoyed a 63% increase in real median net worth excluding home equity. (Median home equity for those under 35 was zero in both 2019 and 2025, since a majority of families in that group do not own homes.)
Additionally, the net worth of those under 35 is more affected by other asset categories, especially vehicles. For non-homeowning families, vehicles are often the largest assets they hold. (Around 80% of the sample of Americans under 35 had vehicles in both 2022 and 2025.)
Sure enough, the SCF data show a statistically significant, large decrease in vehicle wealth from 2022 to 2025. In other words, while the decrease in median net worth among those under 35 was not statistically significant, the decrease in vehicle wealth among this group was statistically significant. This makes sense – because real car values in general declined precipitously since 2022, after shooting up from 2019. (See Table 1.)
Young families’ wealth also needs to be understood in the context of their stage of life: they have had fewer years to save and accumulate assets. Another revealing comparison is with earlier generations at similar ages. Using the same SCF data, economist Jeremy Horpedahl finds that millennial households around age 40 have higher real median net worth than baby boomers and Gen X did at comparable ages. That does not erase the financial challenges young families face, but it complicates the claim that they are falling behind their predecessors. For what it’s worth, there’s plenty more evidence that destroys that story.
The SCF estimates that young families’ real median wealth declined between 2022 and 2025, but the uncertainty around that estimate leaves open the possibility of no change. Read alongside gains since 2019, changes in asset values, and comparisons with earlier generations at similar ages, the findings offer a more complicated picture than the viral chart suggests. That chart, on its own, certainly does not establish that older Americans are getting richer at younger Americans’ expense.
