Fintech news: Fed's 2025 survey shows rising debt burdens

The Federal Reserve on Friday released the results of its 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, the triennial snapshot of what American families own, owe and earn. For fintech companies that lend to, bank and invest for those households, the new numbers show a population with higher median incomes and wealth, but also more families stretched by debt payments.

The Board also issued a summary report, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025, and an interactive chartbook. The survey has run every three years since 1989 in its current form.

Key takeaways

• Real median family income rose 7 percent between the 2022 and 2025 surveys to $82,200, while real mean income fell 6 percent to $145,200.
• Real median net worth rose 2 percent to $215,900; real mean net worth rose 7 percent to $1.24 million.
• The share of families with debt payments above 40 percent of income rose from 6.5 percent to 8.6 percent, a level last seen in the 2013 survey.

Income and wealth

The Fed said families at the lower ends of the income and net worth distributions saw modest increases in median and mean income, while families at the upper ends saw declines. That pattern explains how the median rose while the mean fell. On net worth, most families across the distributions saw gains in both median and mean wealth.

The homeownership rate was 66 percent, about unchanged from 2022. Among owners, median net housing value, meaning the home’s value minus home-secured debt, rose to $230,000 from $218,900.

Investing and retirement

Stock market participation, which includes direct and indirect holdings, slipped from 58 percent of families in 2022 to 56 percent in 2025. Among families that hold stock, however, median holdings grew 36 percent, from $56,900 to $77,400. Retirement plan participation, covering account-type plans, individual retirement accounts and defined benefit plans, rose slightly to around 65 percent, and mean and median balances rose for families with account-type plans.

For investing apps and robo-advisers, that combination is notable in a practical sense: ownership is a bit less widespread, but those who own are holding more.

Debt

The share of families with any debt held at about 77 percent, and median and mean debt outstanding were unchanged from 2022. The pressure shows up in the payment burden. Families with debt payment-to-income ratios above 40 percent, which the Fed describes as particularly high obligations relative to income, grew from 6.5 to 8.6 percent.

A flat share of indebted families alongside a larger share with heavy payments suggests the burden is concentrating, which is the pattern lenders and card issuers will want to understand.

The Fed’s release does not attribute the rise to a cause, and this article does not either; the survey measures conditions rather than explaining them.

Why the numbers matter to fintech

Fintech firms depend on an accurate picture of who their customers are. A 40 percent payment-to-income ratio is a threshold the Fed uses to flag particularly high obligations, so the move from 6.5 to 8.6 percent translates into a larger group of households with little room to absorb a missed paycheck or a new payment. At the same time, median stock holdings, retirement balances and housing equity among families that hold them all rose, which points to a customer base that is better capitalized in some places and thinner in others.

The release is cautious about explanation, and the chartbook lets readers track each measure over time.

About the data

The survey is conducted for the Board by NORC, a social science research organization at the University of Chicago. Participants are chosen at random from 119 geographic areas, including metropolitan areas and rural counties, using sampling procedures intended to produce a representative sample of American families. Researchers and the public can download additional data from the survey.

What to watch

Underwriting teams and consumer finance analysts will mine the public data files for detail on how debt burdens vary by income, age and region. The rise in the high-payment-burden share is the figure that most directly concerns anyone pricing or monitoring consumer credit.