To think it’s unlikely £300k is the median household wealth in the UK

[Justacigarette]

saw this on Facebook: apparantly the telegraph are saying that median UK wealth is £300k per household.

From who I know personally, i find this so unlikely. Sure; some people do have wealth over this amount; no doubt about it. But I know many many more people who have a lot less

Don't forget that by being slap bang in the middle, this means including the phenomenal levels of wealth held by a very small number of people - somebody with a net worth of £30,000,000 is going to to shift the arrow higher than 6 million people in social housing with fuck all except for a sofa from IKEA and £350 in the bank until payday.

Why do they use median for that?

I’m still surprised though - they are an awful lot of people with no wealth at all.

The average house price in UK is just a shade off £300k. There will be millions who bought at a much lower price and paid off the mortgage. Then add pension, any savings and working income. House and pension equity aren't things people generally consider, as they aren't as accessible.

It’s median not mean. As it includes equity in property and pensions I think it sounds about right.

YABU - as others have said it’s probably reasonable and it clearly says ‘less than’

No, that would be if they used the mean. If you lined up every household in ascending order of wealth, the median is the wealth of the household in the middle of the line. It doesn't make any difference to the median figure how much wealthier person 51 is.

I think it's likely accurate if considers equity. I work with older people and often have details of their financial situation and many do have considerable amounts of savings/ shares / second properties as well as their mortgage free homes.

When you consider property I thought it would be higher?

That sounds plausible.

It's the median. The actual ONS data breaks it down by age group too. There's significant variations obviously.

A lot will be held by older people

Because the median prevents outliers at the very top from skewing the figures. If you lined up 99 people in order of their wealth and then gave £10bn to person 99, the median would stay the same because the important figure is what person 50 has.

Yes I think they very deliberately say median so it isn’t skewed by the really wealthy

It's the median. Seems pretty accurate to me. I would love to see a proper distribution. I know we are on the upper part, because we are older, live in the SE with mortgage mostly paid and good pension savings, but it would be an interesting exercise to understand exactly where we sit.

I don't think it is that crazy if it includes pensions and property. My pension pot is over £500k alone on paper but that is still a fairly paltry pension when the time comes. Anyone with a defined benefit scheme would have much greater "worth" even it they have a fairly averagly paying job.

🤣 official national statistics and you think they are wrong because people you know don’t have that much money. Unless you know everyone in the UK and have forensically reviewed their finances how would you possibly know?

Not sure if this has been posted yet

What is the Mean Median Mode Formula?
Let us first understand what does mean, median, and mode mean in statistics.

Mean is also known as the arithmetic mean of the given data.

Median is the middlemost value of the given ungrouped data if the data is arranged in ascending order
.
Mode is the value that appears most in the data.

I am indeed clear in what median means! A bit mean to assume don’t

Is it the ONS statistics that this comes from? Thanks for clarifying. It just seems like such a high number especially in a country where the average salary is under £40k

Salary and assets aren't related though.

There will be many many older people with far more than £300k in assets due to housing wealth and the value of their pension, many of whom will only ever have been average earners.

By the time you come to pensionable ages after tax raids and budget changes and further cost of living increases etc.....that'll probably be enough to buy you a couple of bunches of bananas and a loaf of bread.

Its an estimated or assumed median because unless everyone is reporting the value of their assets, it can't possibly be known. There isn't another person in this land who knows the value of my assets. I don't entirely know myself.

I don’t think you understand wealth or assets or pensions.

A Little bit of research would have explained the figure - it’s not wrong, just new information for you.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2020tomarch2022

Haha, only on Mumsnet where everyone makes 100k working from home with time to piss about on a forum all day

I’m having a look at the ONS stats, and I’m confused, as it states that only 17% of households have net wealth of over £100k. If £300k is the median, I would expect roughly 50% of households to have net wealth over £300k, not only 17 % with over £100k

is the £300k including peoples estimate house value, but not taking away the amount owed on the mortgage?

edit: the financial wealth doesn’t include property: answered my own question there

It feels in the low side.
If you think a good proportion of the population are over 50, with pension pots and a good chunk of their mortgage paid off.
My area seems to have loads of massjve houses with older people living in them, retired and mortgage paid. They would have bought their houses at around 60 to 100k and now most of them are worth 1million and more.