Real GDP growth
2.1%
seasonally adjusted annual rate
Output expanded at a moderate pace.
Boundary Annualized quarter-over-quarter rate, not year-over-year growth.
The American Household Economy · 2026
Economy
The national backdrop in 2026: growth, consumer demand, aggregate household wealth, interest rates, federal debt, and the difference between a healthy aggregate and household-level experience.
Data as of
Growth and demand
The economy was expanding, but not booming. Annualized quarterly rates are flows, not changes in household wealth.
Nominal gross domestic product
$31.866T
seasonally adjusted annual rate
The economy's nominal scale continued expanding.
Boundary Current-dollar annualized flow, not household wealth or real living standards.
Real final sales to private domestic purchasers
1.7%
seasonally adjusted annual rate
Private domestic demand grew more slowly than headline GDP.
Boundary Excludes government, inventories, exports and imports.
Real consumer spending growth
+0.3%
monthly percent change
Consumers continued to increase real spending.
Boundary One month and subject to revision.
The national household balance sheet
Aggregate U.S. household wealth is vast. Distributional accounts show why that fact cannot be used as a proxy for the median family or the bottom half.
Household and nonprofit net worth
$183.0T
trillion dollars
Aggregate balance-sheet wealth remained near a record high.
Boundary Includes nonprofits and is an aggregate stock, not the wealth of the median household.
Net worth to disposable income
7.81×
multiple of annual disposable personal income
Aggregate wealth remained far above annual household-sector income.
Boundary Ratio is sector-wide and heavily influenced by asset-owning households.
Deposits and money-market funds
$20.6T
trillion dollars
Liquid financial assets remained large in aggregate.
Boundary Distribution is highly unequal; aggregate liquid assets do not establish household-level emergency capacity.
Household and nonprofit liabilities
$21.6T
trillion dollars
Sector liabilities were modest relative to aggregate assets.
Boundary Aggregate leverage can conceal severe borrower-level stress.
Total household debt
$18.794T
trillion dollars
Nominal debt reached a record but grew only 0.1% in the quarter.
Boundary Aggregate stock; does not alone indicate affordability or distress.
Rates and the federal backdrop
Monetary and fiscal conditions shape borrowing costs and future policy space. They do not translate one-for-one into household solvency.
Federal-funds target range
3.50–3.75%
target midpoint percent
Monetary policy remained restrictive relative to the 2% inflation goal.
Boundary A policy rate, not the borrowing rate households receive.
Effective federal-funds rate
3.63%
percent
Overnight policy conditions remained restrictive relative to the 2010s.
Boundary Interbank overnight rate; consumer borrowing rates include spreads and credit risk.
10-year Treasury yield
4.67%
percent
Long rates kept mortgage and business financing costly.
Boundary Market yield at a point in time; can move materially day to day.
Total public debt outstanding
$39.519T
trillion dollars
Federal debt continued to rise in nominal terms.
Boundary Gross federal debt is not household debt and should be analyzed relative to GDP, revenue and maturity structure.
Federal debt to GDP
122.6%
percent of GDP
The gross debt ratio remained high by postwar peacetime standards.
Boundary Gross debt definition includes intragovernmental holdings; not a near-term crisis indicator by itself.
Federal budget deficit
$1.775T
trillion dollars deficit
The federal government continued running a large annual deficit.
Boundary Fiscal-year flow; not comparable to household borrowing or the gross debt stock.
What the macro numbers do not establish
Positive GDP does not prove that living standards rose for every group. Record aggregate wealth does not mean the typical household can access it. A high debt-to-GDP ratio does not by itself prove an immediate fiscal crisis. The correct bridge from the national accounts to lived experience is distribution, prices, employment and liquidity — all shown elsewhere in this atlas.
The evidence describes a high-wealth, high-price-level, high-concentration economy with a labor market that is still functioning but cooling. That is resilience and stress at the same time, not a contradiction.