The Federal Reserve released its Survey of Consumer Finances on Friday, revealing that American families are struggling with debt obligations at levels unseen since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
The portion of families behind on loan payments soared from about 12% in the prior survey period to nearly 20% by the end of 2025, representing a gain of roughly 67%.
“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” the Fed’s report stated directly.
The 2010 survey captured a nation just crawling out of the Great Recession, a contraction that ran from December 2007 through June 2009 and pushed unemployment to 10%.
A collapse in the subprime mortgage market during that period sent contagion spreading across the largest financial institutions in both the United States and globally.
The new Fed data shows that families behind by two months or more also accelerated considerably, rising to more than 8% from 5% in 2022.
The share of families with payment-to-income ratios greater than 40% jumped to 8.6%, up from 6.5% in 2022 and the highest level recorded since 2013.
A separate New York Fed survey released earlier this week showed households reported their financial situations had worsened from a year ago and were expected to weaken further in the year ahead.
While debt stress mounted broadly, higher earners continued pulling away from the rest, with those in the top income group seeing their median net worth rise 31%.
Inflation-adjusted average net worth across all families increased 7% to $1.24 million, though median net worth rose just 2% to $215,900, reflecting the outsized gains concentrated at the top.
The Fed found that real median family income increased 7% during the period, but average income dropped 6%, suggesting widening volatility in how economic gains were distributed.
“Families in the lower ends of the income and net worth distributions saw modest increases in median and mean income, while families in the upper ends saw declines,” the report stated, adding that “these patterns indicate that income inequality decreased slightly between surveys.”
Income gains were particularly strong among families aged 75 or older, while income tumbled 25% for those aged 35 to 44, which the Fed attributed to declines in capital gains income for that group.
“The exceptions to the general pattern of a rise in median income were for Black non-Hispanic families, Asian families, and families toward the top of the usual income and net worth distributions,” the report stated, noting that “for these families, both median and mean income fell.”
Families in the bottom one-fourth of income saw median net worth decline 6% while average net worth fell 4%, underscoring the uneven nature of the economic recovery during the survey period.
Education continued to serve as a major dividing line, with college degree holders earning 1.9 times the median income of those with some college and nearly three times their median net worth.
The report noted that net worth growth overall was “much slower” than the prior survey covering the 2019-22 period, a signal that wealth accumulation has broadly decelerated across American households.
