The Federal Reserve has released a major survey showing American families are struggling to keep up with debt payments at levels not seen since the global financial crisis.
The central bank’s Survey of Consumer Finances, released Friday, found that nearly 20% of families were behind on loan payments by the end of 2025, up sharply from around 12% in the previous survey.
That marks the highest rate of debt delinquency recorded since the Fed’s 2010 survey, conducted just as the United States was beginning to emerge from the Great Recession.
“Families were more likely to be behind on their financial obligations than at any point since the 2010 survey,” the report stated, describing a significant deterioration in household debt management over a three-year period.
The proportion of families falling two or more months behind on payments also worsened considerably, climbing to more than 8% from 5% recorded in the 2022 survey cycle.
The share of families carrying debt-to-income payment ratios above 40% jumped to 8.6%, up from 6.5% in 2022, reaching the highest level recorded since 2013.
The Great Recession, which ran from December 2007 to June 2009, was triggered by a collapse in the subprime mortgage market that sent unemployment spiking to as high as 10% across the United States.
Concerns about household finances have continued well beyond the survey period, with a separate New York Fed survey released earlier this week showing households believe their financial situations have worsened over the past year and expect further deterioration ahead.
The picture on income and wealth was sharply divided along earnings lines, with higher-income families pulling further ahead during the three-year period covered by the report.
Those in the top income group saw their median net worth rise 31%, while families in the bottom quarter of income distribution saw median net worth decline by 6% and average net worth fall by 4%.
Inflation-adjusted average net worth rose 7% to $1.24 million across all families, but median net worth climbed just 2% to $215,900, reflecting how gains were concentrated at the upper end.
Real median family income increased 7% during the period, though average income actually dropped 6%, pointing to widening disparities beneath the headline figures.
“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 pronounced among families aged 75 or older, while those aged 35 to 44 saw income fall by 25%, a decline the Fed attributed to drops in capital gains income for that cohort.
“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 noted, with both median and mean income falling for those groups.