Shocking Money Stats Of The Average Person

I'm sure most of us at one point or maybe some of us on the regular wonder how well we're doing financially compared to everybody else. And today I wanted to pull back the curtain on some of the scary money stats of the average person because once you hear some of this, you might realize that you're doing better than you actually thought. I can guarantee some of these numbers will shock you, some of them will make you feel better, and a few might even be a serious wake-up call of some improvements that you need to be making in your life. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which as of me filming this video is shut down, but as of their latest data, the average U.S. worker makes a median income of $52,000 per year or roughly $1,000 per week, which means that half of all workers make less than that and half of all workers make more than that. But after taxes and Social Security, Medicare, the take-home pay for that same worker is closer to $35,000 or $40,000 a year depending on where you live. So that only leaves most people about $3,000 a month to cover rent, groceries, gas, and everything else, which is not exactly a comfortable living budget in 2025. And here's where things get even more serious than that, because according to the Federal Reserve, the median retirement savings for Americans is just $65,000, which is barely more than most people make in a year, and about 25% of Americans have zero saved for retirement. When we go by age, people who are under 25 years old typically have less than $2,000 saved, 25 to 34-year-olds have around $14,000 saved, and 65 and older only have about $88,000 saved. And if you're trying to retire on $88,000 and live by the 4% withdrawal rule, well guess what? That's only giving you $3,500 per year or about $300 per month in retirement. That's it. Anybody who's planning on getting a Social Security check, Social Security checks are topping out around $1,900 a month for most people, so that's not terrible if you don't have a lot of expenses and you have a paid off home, but it's not really enough to live comfortably either. I know I do have some viewers who tell me that they live comfortably on just their Social Security alone, but believe me, you are the anomaly. You are the outlier. Most people are not going to be able to do that. In fact, anybody today who is paying into Social Security and is still going to be working for at least another 10 or 20 years, you should be planning on getting nothing. Even though you've been paying in your entire adult working life, there's a good chance that you will get nothing or a very under-promised amount compared to what you've paid in. By the way, today I'm walking on Turtle Rock Court here in Tiburon, California. So let's talk about where the money actually goes once it's in people's hands. The average household spends about $5,577 per month or roughly $67,000 per year. So that means you need to be taking home at least that $67,000 a year just to be able to break even, and we know most people aren't, which is why Americans are in record amounts of debt of all kinds. Household debt levels here in this country are higher than they've ever been at any time in our past. People are spending about $1,885 a month on housing, about $691 a month on food, and $913 a month on transportation, and that's already $3,500 a month before anything fun or even healthcare. And remember, the average income after taxes is only $3,000 per month. So you easily need to be a two-income household to be able to float this right now. So it's no surprise after hearing all those stats that the average household carries over $9,000 in credit card debt right now, and these interest rates on these credit cards are exorbitant now, like 25% in most cases. So people are paying like $1,800 to $2,000 a year, sometimes more, just in interest. That's almost a month's salary for people. And the saddest part is most of that debt is not emergencies, it's not medical bills, it's just stuff. It's online shopping, it's eating out, it's buying gadgets, sometimes it's groceries and essentials, but a lot of times it's just stuff that you don't really need to have. And this is the main reason that you need to prioritize paying off this type of debt before ever making any investments, because what's the point in earning a 7% to 10% annualized return in your stock portfolio if you're paying 25% a year on interest on all of your debt? You're still coming out behind even after investing. So if you can get out of that debt and then start investing, you're going to be getting a lot further ahead a lot faster by doing it that way. So where does this leave people in terms of net worth? Well, the median American household has a net worth of about $122,000. If you're under 35, you have about $14,000. 35 to 44 is $91,000. 45 to 54 is $168,000. 55 to 64 is $212,000. And then of course the wealthiest are 65 to 74 at $266,000 in net worth. And believe me, these are very achievable numbers. In fact, they're not even really all that high. I mean, you guys can see this neighborhood. I'm walking around here, like all of these houses are anywhere between like $3 and $10 million. Like this is way above these numbers. And I know this isn't normal. I'm just saying that, well, obviously everybody around here was able to accumulate this money and buy one of these houses. So that means it is possible. It doesn't mean you need to strive for that. It just goes to show you that when you want something, it can be done. The savings rate in America is completely abysmal. It's only at 6% right now. So that means for every $1,000 people make, they're only saving $60 of it. And really with that savings, people still have to take that money out to have a down payment on a car or for an emergency. The financial experts recommend saving anywhere between 10% to 15% of your income for just retirement alone. And even more, if you want to retire early, which shows you that most people aren't coming anywhere close to this. And I know by looking on the internet and watching the different videos and seeing everybody with the fire movement and saying, Hey, I retired at 25 years old or whatever. This is not normal. Most people are never going to be able to come anywhere close to that. And I don't think people should make that a goal either, because it's very unrealistic for most people. That's part of the issue is that today we live in such a world of extremes, especially things that you see online. And you either see people that look like they're just making it and doing super well from a young age or people who are doing nothing but struggling and letting you know about it. So I recommend people try to strive for numbers way beyond everything that we just talked about. Like the forget it. You should be striving for at least the 10 to 15% debt. Don't touch it. Get out of all kinds of debt, except for the mortgage. That's probably the only way most people are going to be able to afford a house credit card debt. Absolutely have to get rid of it. You should definitely be investing about 10% of your income, if not even more on a regular basis in order to fund your future and your retirement. I mean, even if your household, say your household makes $6,000 a month, right? But you live off of $4,500 a month instead, and you invest that $1,500 over the span of 30 or 40 years, you're going to be worlds ahead of anybody that we just talked about in this video. You know, everybody says they want to have financial freedom, but their habits and their spending patterns don't reflect that. That's why I want people to use these numbers and figures that we just talked about as a wake-up call. Because once you understand how most people handle their money, it becomes apparent that you can do a much better job than average. And that's really where the real wealth is built. Check out the turkeys. It's grazing right down here, getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. And kind of a funny transition away from all of this is the Amazon Prime Day shopping numbers from October. Okay. We just had a second Prime Day this year. The last one was in July, and apparently the results were underwhelming, which is a good sign that people aren't spending the money, but it's also a bad sign because it most likely means that people don't have the money and are tapped out. According to Amazon shoppers, the top reason that they even shopped at Prime Day in October was 45% of people said they were waiting for items to go on sale, which is smart. 28% said they were buying everyday essentials and 25% said they were waiting for discounted and stocked up items. And even though most Amazon shoppers, about 90% knew about this, only 61% of the shoppers that shopped in July returned for the October event versus 88% of shoppers that they had just back in July. That just shows you how much the economy has changed in just a few months, guys. The spending is really starting to slow down. Even the credit card spending, we talked about this the other day, the credit card spending is even falling flat right now, which is kind of unusual. The average order value for this latest Prime deal also fell 15% from $53 to $45 and 44% of orders were under $20. And only 23% of the October event shoppers used this as a start to their holiday shopping season versus 45% last year. And that gives us kind of a gauge of what kind of holiday season this is going to be. It's not a guarantee, but it's definitely an early preview that people probably aren't going to be spending as much this holiday season. Although you never know, right? Like every year, it seems like it's going to be bad because things aren't good. But that seems to be the one time a year when people will make the exception and go into crazy amounts of debt just to be able to buy gifts and keep up with the Joneses. So I wouldn't be surprised if we see another record-breaking holiday season, even though we had bad Prime Day numbers. Although this is what holiday shoppers are already thinking right now. 80% of shoppers are expecting higher prices this year, which is kind of a no-brainer. 31% actually plan to buy fewer items. And a lot of people are concerned about the rising grocery costs that could take away from the money that they have to spend on gifts and other discretionary items for the holidays. And I know how expensive everything is guys, which is why I'm going to give you two things for free right now. First of all, if you don't know, I started a second YouTube channel. It is a Clips channel, which is a bunch of shorter videos. So if you like shorter videos, go ahead and check out that channel. You can subscribe to that below for free, as well as my newsletter that I've been sending out once a week. A lot of people have been enjoying receiving it. And that is also 100% free. The links for both of these things are in the description down below every video. Here's another thing that's slowing down right now. Home renovation plans are being put on hold. And this is another sign that the economy is slowing down tremendously right now. Last month, Home Depot and Lowe's reported recent sales, and the executives told investors that do-it-yourselfers and other homeowners were spending less on large remodeling projects. Fewer people are also researching online for bath and kitchen remodeling plans. And the thing is, people tend to put off these big purchases and projects that cost a lot of money when they worry more about the economy, or if they have a fear that they might lose their job, because after all, how are you going to pay for this? Oh yeah, that's right. They have home equity loans and home equity lines of credit. That's one of the greatest ways to use your home equity, right? Is to remodel. Yeah, keep telling yourself that. It also doesn't help that a lot of construction-related goods have been going up in price over the past few months due to all the new tariffs we had. And most recently, they just announced that we're going to have tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and bathroom vanities by 25% starting next week now. You know, personally, when I hear about the slowdown in spending, you know, the slower Amazon Prime Day and the slowing down of credit card spending, stuff like that, like this is actually good news in my opinion. You know, the stock market doesn't like it because that means businesses are making less sales. The government doesn't like it because it means economic growth is coming to a halt, which ultimately means bad GDP figures. But I think it's a good thing because we need some sort of a reset. And that reset is going to come from people voting with their wallets. People have to decide how much money to spend and on what every single month. And if people are choosing the essentials and not choosing any of the non-essentials that people need right now, well, that's a pretty strong message that people are sending to this economy that, you know what, we can't afford to buy anything that we don't need right now. And this is just how it's going to have to be. So until we can get lower prices on all of these things, we're just not going to buy it. And I don't think that's a bad thing because obviously nobody should be spending more than they can afford to just because they feel compelled to, or they saw an ad on TV. Because let me remind you, 30% of people in this country do not even have $400 for an emergency. People report that they would need to borrow the money or they would need to put it on a credit card or whatever, just to be able to pay for a $400 emergency. So that is not good. You guys can see by taking a look at this chart here, the amount of people that have enough money to pay for a $400 emergency has been pretty flat since 2022, which suggests that there hasn't been a whole lot of upward mobility in recent times for people's finances. You're either doing well and you're able to maintain that, or you're not doing as well. And it's very hard to dig yourself out of that, which explains the debt situation of why household debt in general is at all time highs. People are using this money to survive. And that explains why the spending on all these different types of things is starting to go down. And I just want people to know that the reason I talk about this stuff a lot is because I want people who watch my channel to do better for themselves. I want everybody who watches my channel to be above average. You don't have to be some multi-millionaire or own a mansion or anything like that. But at least if you're putting enough away to have a good emergency fund in case something happens, especially a job loss right now, and you're not drowning in debt like the average American is, and you're able to actually retire one day and live in dignity in your older years, I think that is a huge win over the situation most people are facing right now. So let me know what you guys think about all this. Don't forget to sign up for my second channel and the newsletter down below. And if you don't want to wait for my next video to come out, check out this one on the screen right over here, and I'll see you in the next one.