The percentage is very misleading because you can have a negative net worth. The average could be $1, in which case you get a 500% increase by giving everyone $5.

That doesn't discount the article entirely, but I wish people would stop using misleading statistics for completely valid points. It really ruins your argument.

Is that inflation adjusted? If not, the $11k, probably should've been higher than $18k.

Still not a huge drop in absolute terms, but the percentage is a lot worse.

I'd almost be more interested in the change in variance across time. If education costs are the main factor, and the top 10-20% (? estimate) have parent's who pay for college, you'd think this might be yet another factor exacerbating inequality.

I'd also be much more interested in a more detailed net worth distribution over time. Reminds me of the quote Nassim Taleb is fond of, "Never cross a river that is on average 4 feet deep".

Averaged across 10’s of millions of people and even 100$ is quite significant. It’s not that everyone has X$ less, some people have more and others have significantly less.

With the student debt I honestly expected the average net worth to be negative.