Keeping Up's claim of a 23% net-worth drop for under-35s draws HN skepticism
A marketing data site's benchmark page claiming real household net worth for 30–33-year-olds fell 23% since 2022 spreads on Hacker News and draws scrutiny over its methodology.
What to know
- Keeping Up's benchmark claims median net worth for U.S. 30–33-year-olds is $68,000, down 23% in real terms from 2022 to 2025.
- The figures are modeled from federal survey microdata (SCF, BLS, Census) blended with the site's own membership data, with the page used to drive email signups.
- Hacker News commenters note the page does not display the 2022 baseline figures needed to verify the decline, and that it appears to conflict with reported real income growth over the same period.
- Commenters also dispute whether the data accounts for cost-of-living differences and student debt, and several flag distrust of the site's marketing-oriented presentation.
The dispute Whether living in a low-cost-of-living area genuinely helps young households build wealth or just reflects fewer local job opportunities. · positions read across 12 posts and comments
The claimed decline is unverifiable or suspect because the site omits the 2022 baseline and appears to contradict other income data.
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“I don't see data for 2022 on the page? I searched for "2022" and found nothing?”
anubistheta · Hacker News ↗
The benchmark ignores cost-of-living differences, and commenters disagree on whether cheaper areas actually make young households better or worse off.
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“One thing it doens't do is account for cost of living for a given city.”
irjustin · Hacker News ↗
The reported median figure seems implausibly high or incomplete given debt and cost pressures young adults face.
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“The median is actually surprisingly high. How did someone who is in their early 30s and has been in the workforce for only about 10 years and presumably has university debt, manage to accumulate $68k?”
jongjong · Hacker News ↗
Keeping Up Inc Publisher of the net worth benchmark pagejpmulhausen Hacker News submitterFederal Reserve Source of underlying Survey of Consumer Finances data
How it unfolded 4 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlespostscomments
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4
Commenters debate missing cost-of-living adjustment
Several HN users argue the benchmark ignores cost-of-living differences across cities, disagreeing over whether living in a lower-cost area actually helps young households build wealth.
“There is a small group of people who might benefit from being in a LCL area, its people with remote jobs and no kids.”
— bad_haircut72 -
“Kids these days” are lazy and entitled. Can’t blame them; they grew up with a screen in front of their face all the time. Their attention span is limited and their critical thinking skills are lacking. However, even with these major disadvantages, I still believe a young’n could make a great living if they just put their head dow, gain a skill…
2 more of the top 3 · 8 posts in this stretch
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The median is actually surprisingly high. How did someone who is in their early 30s and has been in the workforce for only about 10 years and presumably has university debt, manage to accumulate $68k?That's $7k per year, which they have to save from the surplus after paying their rents, groceries, healthcare, university debts and everything else.
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There is a small group of people who might benefit from being in a LCL area, its people with remote jobs and no kids. If you need to find work locally LCL doesn't help and is actually worse, and if you have kids the schools in these areas inevitably push you back to HCL sooner or later.
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Commenters question the missing 2022 baseline and income data
An HN commenter notes the page shows no visible 2022 figures to substantiate the stated decline and points out that real median incomes reportedly rose 6.2% over the same period.
“I don't see data for 2022 on the page? I searched for "2022" and found nothing?”
— anubistheta -
Households is an interesting metric to choose. If fewer people get married, then average household would have fewer people.But I don't see data for 2022 on the page? I searched for "2022" and found nothing?What makes it odd to me is that real median incomes for both individuals and households rose 6.2% over that period. That includes all people…
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
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This is a generic comment of course, but anyone else feeling immediate distrust when data is presented in an obvious vibe design (I have "built" sites with that exact font combo and general vibe ffs). Ideally one should distrust any data on random websites to begin with, but at least my human psychology deducted many extra points here.
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Are student loans excluded from this data? Can't imagine that the 10% line is only at -$10k in that scenario.
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Mastodon bots relay the Hacker News post
Automated Mastodon accounts (hkrn, h4ckernews, hn100) repost the headline and link to the Hacker News discussion within the same hour.
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I find this to be an incredibly irritating way to present this data. Why the obsession with finding out where I fall in the distribution? Why prompt me to sign up for email? Do you have anything to say, or is this like a BuzzFeed quiz?
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Net-worth decline claim hits Hacker News front page
The page is submitted to Hacker News by jpmulhausen and quickly accumulates score and comments, with a parallel RSS-tracked submission also circulating.
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background
Keeping Up publishes net worth benchmark for ages 30–33 — The site states half of people aged 30–33 have a net worth above $68,000, with the top 10% starting at $440,000, modeled from the Federal Reserve's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, BLS and Census data, and headlines a 23% real decline since 2022.
What people are saying 5 voices from 1 site · best of 12 · verbatim
- What were the actual 2022 figures used to compute the claimed 23% decline?
- Does the net worth calculation include or exclude student loan debt?
- Why does the claimed wealth decline conflict with reported real income growth over the same period?
- Nov 3
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Yes, why would someone want to uncover a person's income and email from an audience of likely high net worth individuals? Gosh, such a mystery.
- Nov 2
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I suppose that's what happens if demand goes up for external reasons while supply doesn't follow.
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I'm in Austin and money goes seriously far compared to the seven cities above it. There's a 2015-built home on Zillow for $199,000 1346 sq ft just 2 miles from the Tesla factory.
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Growing up in a LCL area, there are few jobs, and young people tend to leave for opportunities. The ones doing ok are retired or working a government job.
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One thing it doens't do is account for cost of living for a given city. Sure it looks nice that NYC, SF is higher than everyone else but I'm sure there's a very large group living in LCL areas that have far less stress compared to the bigger cities when it comes to budgeting.