Age 68, and my net worth easily surpasses the 70th percentile.
Yep. Me too. Easily. And house will paid off in 10 months. The numbers seem real low, because I still plan on having to work into my mid 60’s.
How do you figure if you’re married and share all assets and liabilities? Divide by two?
According to this calculator, my household net worth puts me in the 93rd percentile for the 45-54 age group. And I’m only 45, at the low end of the bracket; assuming continued gainful employment for the foreseeable future, I expect my percentile ranking will increase as I age within this bracket.
To be fair, my household includes me and my wife. If we split our nest egg and consider ourselves as individuals, then I’m only in the 84th percentile.
The numbers seem low because so many Americans are effectively broke. The highly skew distribution of assets means that the average net worth is far, far higher than the 50th percentile net worth. Mean != median for skew distributions.
Another question is whether those numbers are really per-household numbers versus per-person numbers.
Also agree that folks’ SocSec benefits have a definable NPV. Whether the source material for the OP’s table includes or excludes that value makes a big difference.
Only if you are planning to get divorced.
Otherwise it’s by household.
Generally yes. But not necessarily. My wife and my net worth dropped because we took on a mortgage to buy a second home. Rather than sell our old place we decided to keep it and rent it out as a revenue-generating investment property. And both properties are in developing neighborhoods in a high-end community so they’re good investments. So longer term, it’s a better financial situation than if we just had a big wad of cash.
Ummm, don’t you need FOUR choices for each age range? Except under 35, that is.
The four choices would be:
- under the 30th percentile
- between the 30th and 50th percentiles
- between the 50th and 70th percentiles
- over the 70th percentile
One’s net worth will fall into one of these intervals. The likelihood that one’s net worth will fall exactly on one of the boundaries between the intervals borders on infinitesimal.
Yes, see posts #2, 12 and 13 regarding the under 30th percentile, and this from OP “The 30th percentile means that if you have exactly this net worth, it is greater than 30% of households your age. The same is true for the 50th and 70th percentiles.” is another way of phrasing the other intervals.
55-64 and at least the 70th percentile. Owning a house with a small remaining mortgage plus retirement funds get me there easily. Debt is low and getting lower. I’m not going to add up all my other assets but they’re not chopped liver.
I don’t know what the higher percentiles look like, but across the board the figures are not surprising. If you live in certain areas of the country you’ll be earning more, and likely to own a valuable home based on those earnings. If you’re older your debts like mortgages could largely be paid down. I included my kids remaining student loans in my debts but those are actually my kids responsibilities, so I’m even better off, but for people with sufficient income things like student loans and mortgages will represent a lot of debt that will eventually be paid off.
Hmm, a lot of rich folks on this board. Anyone want to post a list of addresses? 
Says the doctor…
The calculator puts me a little shy of 90th percentile for my age group (55-65). I wasn’t sure about the poll, so answered 70th for my age bracket.
One option, for future reference, is to ask a mod to close the thread, and open up a new one doing it right.
55-64 age group. I answered 50%, more or less confirmed by Machine Elf’s link.
Mine’s great, if we’re measuring in shoes…
I marked 30th percentile, but I could quickly bring that up to the 50th if I sold my percocets instead of taking them as directed…
That calculator seems to based unrealistic data for the 20-30 year old group:
10% -$20,600
25% -$1,480
50% $8,300
75% $32,000
90% $100,050
I’m really struggling to figure out how 10% of my age group have managed to get a $100,000 net worth. Now, that’s certainly not completely out of reach for those who had minimal student loan debt, got high paying job right out of college, starting saving for retirement right away, and now have a decent bit of equity in a home. Some of my friends who are engineers and programmers conceivably are doing this well (though I don’t know the details of their finances).
However I can’t imagine even 10% of this age group being that successful. I can’t quite square that with what I know about high rates of unemployment, underemployment, still living with parents, and low homeowner rates. I suspect there is a large disconnect between “households” and “individuals” in this population. I see the data age is more specifically for the “head of household”. Maybe it’s just excluding a large proportion of 20-30 year old individuals who are members of a household with an older “head of household”. E.g. college students (even living away from home), anyone living with their parents, anyone with an older and more successful spouse. Possibly even excluding anyone living as a financially-independent roommate? Then there’s the fact that a large proportion of successful individuals are marrying each other.
Anyways, that’s a long winded response of saying that I’m in my late 20s, in the 50-70% range according to the OP’s grouping, but I thought I would have been somewhat better than that…
These numbers seem low to me. There has to be major regional fluctuation as most middle age home owners in my region will qualify for the 70% between home value & 401ks. Figure home value as approx sale value - remaining mortgage. Then add 401k and other savings and investments and the $228,708 is fairly low. But salaries, home prices and cost of living are all very high in this region so that drives up the figures.
That would be a first from what I’ve seen of Straight Dope polls. :dubious: Most Dopers seem to be in the top 70% anyways.
The calculator only says I’m above 90%, either for my age or the range. Not enough data in their sample, I bet.
I’m above 70% (55-64) for my house only and without my house. Way over.
Using the calculator found by Machine Elf, Ms Hook and myself are in the 84th percentile for those 66 - 68. This is probably low as I didn’t try to make any NPV calculations for my SS or her retirement.