About 7% of U.S. families now hold $1 million or more in retirement accounts, up from 5% in 2022, new Fed data shows. Here’s who’s gaining.
Credit: bbbrrn / Getty Images Key Takeaways
About 7% of U.S. families, 9.4 million in all, held at least $1 million in retirement accounts in 2025, up from 5% in 2022.
Among families with retirement accounts, the median balance for those 75 and older rose, while the median for those under 35 barely moved.
Just over half of families have anything in a retirement account.
Having a million dollars or more in your retirement accounts still puts you in a small club, but membership is growing fast.
That’s among the findings of an Investopedia analysis of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, released earlier this month. About 7% of U.S. families, 9.4 million in all, held at least $1 million in retirement accounts in 2025, up from 5% three years earlier. All figures are in 2025 dollars.
Among families headed by someone 65 or older, the share climbs to 11%. The typical balance for savers under 35 has barely moved since 2022, while the median balance for families 75 and older has grown.
The Million-Dollar Minority
Just over half of families (55%) have a retirement account, little changed since 2022. Among those account holders, about 13% have crossed $1 million, up from 9% three years earlier.
The typical family isn’t even close. The median balance is $106,000, up 11% from 2022. The mean, pulled up by the biggest accounts, is $451,000, up 23%.
But count everything a family owns, including home equity, and the share of millionaires triples: about 22% of families had a net worth of $1 million or more in 2025, up from about 20% in 2022.
Fidelity’s own 401(k) data points in the same direction. The number of ‘millionaire’ accounts on its platform reached a record 769,000 at the end of June, up 19% from March and about 30% from a year earlier, amid the stock market’s rally. That’s about 3% of its 26 million plan participants.
Advisors are spotting the same thing at ground level. Autumn Knutson, a certified financial planner and founder of Styled Wealth, said market returns, not larger deposits or paying off debt, have been doing most of the work.
“I’ve seen a lot of clients who already had meaningful investments see their net worth notably increase over the last three years due to market return,” she said.
The Oldest Savers Are Pulling Ahead
Families 75 and older with retirement accounts had a median balance of $257,000 in 2025, up 79% from $143,400 in 2022. That matches the median for 65- to 74-year-olds, whose balances rose by a more modest 17%.
The Fed noticed, too. Its summary report says families 75 and older now have the highest median net worth of any age group, about $505,000, up 37% from 2022. The Fed attributes the rise mostly to gains in their retirement accounts.
The number of 75-and-older families with accounts also grew, from 6.6 million to 8.1 million. Families now 75 and older are the first cohort that could have held a 401(k) through most of their working years.
Still, the youngest savers went nowhere. The median balance for account holders under 35 rose from $20,700 to $21,000, about $300 in three years.
For those savers, getting within reach comes down to starting habits, when possible, said David Tenerelli, a certified financial planner at Values Added Financial.
“Pay yourself first and automate,” he said. “Commit a portion of each paycheck to your future self by contributing it to your company’s retirement plan, or an IRA or Roth IRA, and set those contributions on autopilot.”
Read the original article on Investopedia