Census Median Net worth: Renter $5K, Owner $234K

[Chris Martin]

I came across this table on the census web site. Table 721 from this census data has breakdowns of the median (and mean) net worth of Americans by age, race, and tenure. In almost every category, there is quite a wide range between the mean (average (sum of all amounts divided by the number of people)) and the median (or middle point where there are equal number of people above and below) net worth. Of interest,

The net worth of Owners: Mean $778.2K , Median $234.2K
The net worth of Renters: Mean $70.6K , Median $5.1K

Only one category, Age of family head 65 to 74 years old, has a mean net worth over $1M.

Yes, this data is from 2007. I couldn't find newer data. It will be interesting to see what 2012 look like.

[Bryan Hancock]

Here is the overall distribution for 2010:

Distribution of Annual Household Income

The folks on the right-hand tail don't seem to stay stagnant from the shape of the graph. If they land there they will eventually move up to the $200k+ bucket.