I agree.Citing the *median* net worth of the nation's households would be far more useful..and revealing...than citing the average worth.
Recently,the Boston globe published a piece called "The Millionaires Among Us".It focused on the western suburbs of Boston which,today,are among the wealthiest towns in the country.The highest figure of "percentage of millionaires" was the town of Weston in which only 27% of the households had a net worth of 1 million or more.
I looked at the sentence from the article that mentioned net worth and it didn't say "median" or "average", which are at least meaningful terms. It said "typical", which has no quantifiable meaning.
I remember doing some research on this number and I was astounded to learn that the U.S. median household net worth was around $90,000.
When you factor in that the figure includes the equity in real estate it seems even more surprising since I think the median price of a home in the US these days is around $150K?
It's probably largely equity in real estate.
People on the coasts and other high-cost real estate areas skew up the average. Net worths are much higher in places like that, but there's also a greater disparity because it's much harder for a young couple just starting out to buy ANY home to build net worth in the first place since costs are so high, even if older people who bought their first home in 1975 are sitting pretty.