Recession Set Families Back Decades, Fed Survey Shows

Lam Thuy Vo / Planet Money

Click on the image above to see a larger version of the graph.

The Federal Reserve dropped a sobering statistic on the American public today: 40 percent.  That’s the proportion of median net worth families lost from 2007 to 2010.  The Wall Street Journal pulls no punches in describing the number’s significance:

“The data released Monday are the real, step-back deal. In 2010, the median net worth of families stood at $77,300, down from $126,400 in 2007. A lot of that big drop is because of the sharp decline in home values across much of the nation.” — The Wall Street Journal

We’ve detailed the decline in Idaho’s median family income and compared it to the national numbers in an earlier post.

Planet Money headlines their piece on the Fed data “A Lost Decade for American Families.” For their short and sweet visualization of the drop in net worth, click here.