Nearly one in five American families was behind on a loan payment by the end of 2025, the highest share recorded since the country was still climbing out of the Great Recession, according to a new Federal Reserve survey. The findings paint a picture of households increasingly squeezed even as overall wealth in the country grew, with the benefits landing overwhelmingly at the top of the income ladder.
The Federal Reserve released its latest Survey of Consumer Finances on October 9, examining how American families earned, spent and saved money between 2022 and 2025. As Cleveland.com reported, the share of families with loans who had fallen behind on payments soared to nearly 20%, up from about 12% in the prior survey — the highest level since 2010. Families who were at least two months behind on payments rose from roughly 5% to more than 8% over the three-year period, according to CNBC.
The survey also found that the share of families spending more than 40% of their income on debt payments climbed to 8.6%, up from 6.5% in 2022 — the highest level in more than a decade. That kind of payment burden leaves little room for a missed paycheck or an unexpected bill before a household tips into delinquency.
Wealth Grew, But Not for Everyone Equally
Overall household wealth increased between the two surveys, but the gains were far from evenly shared. Higher-income families saw much bigger increases in net worth than lower-income households, with the wealthiest income group reporting a 31% jump in median net worth, the same CNBC report notes. Average net worth, adjusted for inflation, rose 7% to $1.24 million, while the more representative median figure climbed just 2%, to $215,900.
Families in the bottom one-fourth of the income distribution did not share in that growth at all — their median net worth actually declined 6%, with average net worth down 4% over the same period, per the outlet's account of the data. Real median family income increased 7%, even as average family income dropped 6%, a divergence researchers said reflects that income inequality narrowed slightly between the two surveys.
Debt Keeps Piling Up Nationally
The strain showing up in the Fed's survey lines up with separate figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which track the country's debt load in real time. Total U.S. household debt grew by $191 billion, or 1.0%, in the fourth quarter of 2025, reaching $18.8 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mortgage balances accounted for much of that growth, rising $98 billion to $13.17 trillion, while credit card balances climbed $44 billion to $1.28 trillion.
By the end of last year, 4.8% of all outstanding household debt was in some stage of delinquency, the New York Fed reported. Student loans remained a particular trouble spot, with 9.6% of balances at least 90 days delinquent. Roughly one million student loan borrowers who fell more than 120 days past due had their loans transferred to the U.S. Department of Education's Default Resolution Group, the bank's report shows. Mortgage delinquencies were also on the rise, with the deterioration concentrated in lower-income areas and in areas where home prices were declining.
A separate Federal Reserve research note found that delinquency rates had started to flatten for credit cards and auto loans in the quarters leading up to the third quarter of 2025, suggesting that pressure on those particular categories may have been easing even as other measures of household distress worsened. American households overall faced financial pressure from rising prices and higher borrowing costs during the period the survey covered, underscoring why the gap between the comfortable and the struggling widened even as the country's aggregate wealth kept climbing.
