The wealthiest 10% of Americans are pulling ahead of everyone else. This is what's making them richer.

By Venessa Wong

The wealthiest 10% have a median net worth that is $800,000 greater than it was three years ago

Even as many Americans earned more after the pandemic, little of it turned into wealth.

Even in the face of rising costs, Americans' real median net worth managed to rise by 2% from 2022 to 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve's latest Survey of Consumer Finances.

Yet to truly feel like you are getting ahead in the postpandemic economy, it has helped to be among the wealthiest 10% of Americans, whose median net worth shot up by 19%, after adjusting for inflation, during that time.

In real dollars, that means the typical family in the wealthiest 10% - measured in net worth, not income - was worth close to $4.9 million last year, up by nearly $800,000 from 2022, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told MarketWatch.

Those in the middle "eked out only small gains," Zandi noted. Families in the 50th to 75th percentile reached a median net worth of nearly $406,000, up by about $15,000.

Meanwhile, the typical family in the bottom quarter saw their net worth shrink to a median of $1,700 in 2025 - less than half the median figure three years earlier.

Net worth is a measure of a household's assets minus debts - reflecting the value of what they own, which has the potential to compound in value. Having a high-paying job can make it easier to amass a higher net worth, but only if the household doesn't spend it all.

As financial planner Hanna Horvath recently wrote: "The wealthiest Americans increasingly receive money from things they already own. ... Much of America's vast wealth inequality can be attributed to the growing divide between earned income and ownership, which is only increasing."

Related: Here's the net worth you need to start getting ahead in your 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond in the U.S.

Driving that divide since 2022 was a gap in stock ownership, in particular. "Stock prices rose strongly between the surveys, and the gains went to those who own them," Zandi said.

The wealthiest 10% of Americans hold nearly 90% of stocks. The S&P 500 SPX climbed by more than 60% in the three years between the surveys - and has continued to rise since.

On a positive note, when compared to 2019, the last prepandemic survey, "wealth is up for just about everybody," said Josh Bivens, chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank. He noted that in 2022, consumer finances still reflected the impact of pandemic-related stimulus checks, giving lower-wealth households a temporary boost in net worth that lost momentum by 2025.

Even so, the real median net worth for the lower half of households was higher last year than in 2019.

Despite this six-year improvement, consumer sentiment has been "in the gutter" for some time now. Many young Americans feel their financial goals are simply out of reach, even if the macro numbers show progress.

Meanwhile, the boost in net worth for many middle-class households was largely attributable to rising home values, which climbed by about 30% between surveys. Yet Bivens described this development as "very double-edged," as it has made it more expensive for first-time home buyers to enter the market, and for existing owners to move to a home that better suits their needs.

More on this: The renter generation: Young Americans, shut out of homeownership, brace to rent forever

Meanwhile, overall inflation has made renters and homeowners alike feel like it is harder now to save and get ahead than it should be.

Rising interest rates, on top of high prices, have made "the entrance into asset holding" higher for those who need to borrow, said Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate in the Research to Action Lab at the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

Financing became more expensive between the surveys, according to the Fed's report - with the average interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rising from 4.2% to 6.7%, the average rate on a loan for a new vehicle increasing from 4.9% to 7.7%, and the average credit-card interest rate increasing from 14.6% to 21.4%.

For those who already owned assets before prices and interest rates shot up, especially the wealthiest 10%, "it's just quite a different economy," Brown said.

It was lower-wealth families who "took the brunt of the high inflation and interest rates," Zandi observed. "The strong job market coming out of the pandemic lifted their pay, and income inequality narrowed a bit, but little of that turned into wealth."

Saving and investing are the key mechanisms for building wealth - yet the personal saving rate, or the percentage of people's incomes left after they pay taxes and spend money, fell from 7% in September 2019 to 3.6% in September 2022, and was 3.8% this September.

In this challenging environment, family financial help - whether it's an inheritance or help with a down payment on a home - has become an important advantage, said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank. In this way, there are "compounding advantages at the top, and compounding barriers at the bottom," he noted.

"It's not just about wealth - it's about power," Collins added. As the rise of artificial intelligence powers stock-market gains while also threatening major disruptions in the labor market, those "at the very top are figuring out how to extract more wealth from the rest of the economy," he said - which is "good for investors, bad for workers."

Need help with a career or money-related problem in your life? MarketWatch's Dollar Signs advice column is here for you. Submit your questions anonymously here or write to us at dollarsigns@marketwatch.com.

-Venessa Wong

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11-07-26 1204ET