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What percentage of American adults say they are better off financially than a year ago?

23.4% of American adults say they are better off financially than a year ago - about 23 in every 100, or 2 in 10. That is the figure published by the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2025.

0 in 100100 in 100
23.4

Where this number comes from

Survey
Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
What it measured
SHED 2025 item B3 (“Compared to 12 months ago, would you say that you (and your family) are better off, the same, or worse off financially?”), counting responses 4=Somewhat better off, 5=Much better off. Computed from the Federal Reserve's public-use microdata with its post-stratification weight WEIGHT. The public file has no design variables or replicate weights, so the standard error follows the Fed's documented design effect: SE = √(deff · p(1−p)/n), deff = 1.144 (the Fed's 1.14, or the Kish design effect of these weights if larger); unweighted n = 12,934.
Population
U.S. adults aged 18 and over
Year
2025
95% confidence interval
22.62% to 24.18% (derived from the published standard error)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, public-use data (doi:10.17016/datasets.002). Percentages computed here, with attribution.. See the source data

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