It’s 7.20am – time for you, the average American adult, to wake up.

Data shows you’ll snooze and linger in bed for about 11 minutes and shower for about eight before getting dressed.

Then you’ll have coffee, probably with milk or creamer, and, if you eat breakfast at all, two eggs, statistically speaking, scrambled with a pinch of salt. Those eggs cost about 60 cents as of this writing, the lowest in two years. But that’s a different story.

Every individual undoubtedly differs from the statistical norm in countless ways. Yet, being human, we often find ourselves comparing our habits to these averages. Amid daily routines, it’s natural to wonder whether we stand out or fit in with the rest of society.

But because we’re human, we’re almost certain to compare ourselves – and occasionally wonder, amid the daily routines of our lives, if we’re outliers or freaks.

That’s why the Daily Mail has put together a portrait of the average American in 2025 – drawing on statistics from a mix of surveys, polls, research studies, government reports, and news stories – to provide a reality check at a time when the heavily-curated unrealities on our social media feeds make even grown adults, not just teens, to feel like they’re falling short. 

‘Nobody’s comparing ourselves to a mean or a medium any more. We’re comparing ourselves to depictions of fantasy lives that people are posting on Instagram that leave us all feeling that other people are living their best lives and I’m the only one who doesn’t have it figured out,’ Dr John Waldinger, a Harvard Medical School professor and psychiatrist who directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a long-running study on happiness and well-being, told Daily Mail.

As the numbers show, you, the average American adult, are 39 years old, white, and without a bachelor’s degree in a nation that’s collectively becoming older, more diverse, and more educated, at least in terms of degree-holders.

You’re a smidge more likely to be female than male, with less than a 1% chance of identifying as the gender other than the one assigned to you at birth. 

This percentage may come as a surprise, given how much politicians talk about trans people.

You probably live in an urban area, which could range from a community of 5,000 people to a big city. 

And odds are that you’re within walking distance to a local park and public library, 10 miles away from a hospital, 17 miles from a major airport and an hour’s drive to at least one relative. 

You probably have favorite trees in your neighborhood, but don’t know all or even most of your human neighbors.

You probably also have a pet. One study shows that the vast majority of millennials – 81% – admitted to loving their dogs or cats more than at least one family member.

Chances are, you’re either married or have a domestic partner. 

The quality of that relationship and how long it will last depend on too many factors to explore here in a story about generalities and averages. 

Suffice it to say that Oscar Wilde’s quote, ‘One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry,’ has for several decades held up to scientific scrutiny, at least in the U.S.

You probably have 1.6 kids, although not necessarily with the partner you’re living with. 

If they’ve flown from your nest, you speak with them by phone or text at least a few times a week. 

But on average, you likely go for more than a month at a time, on average, without seeing them in person — the result, as Waldinger sees it, of a ‘mix of greater geographic mobility and increased levels of family discord and disconnection.’

There is no sound data on how you feel about that frequency, but ChatGPT is pretty sure you wish for more contact than you’re getting.

If you work, which statistics say you do – and will until you’re about 62 – you’re on the clock for 39.75 hours a week. That’s in-person rather than remote labor, prompting you to log a weekly average of 4.5 hours commuting.

You earn about $62,192 a year before taxes for your toils.

What you pay in taxes depends on too many factors to discuss here, but chances are that you think it’s too much. 

And, although what you receive in job benefits – especially health insurance – can’t be boiled down into one easy statistic, it’s more likely that you’re insured through your work than through the kinds of individual plans that are at the heart of the current government shutdown. That, too, is a different story.

You owe about $105,000 across mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and credit cards. And, statistics show, you’re more uncomfortable talking about money than politics or religion.

One bit of good news on the job front is that you, the average American adult, have a 50% chance of being either ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ satisfied with your work – a higher likelihood than at any other time in U.S. history. 

Chances are that you’re pretty pleased with your coworkers and supervisors, if not so much with your salary, benefits, or opportunities for promotion.

As anxious as you may be by the prospect of some day being replaced by a bot, you and your colleagues probably aren’t significantly using AI on the job – at least yet.

Your hard work, statistically speaking, has allowed you to own your home and a car, at least two TVs, about 17 connected devices, 16 pairs of shoes, between 50 and 100 books, and at least one houseplant. 

It’s unclear how many unmatched socks are lying around in your household, but somebody should invent an app to reunite them.

You don’t own a gun, the data shows, although you’ve considered it, especially now that your fears for your personal safety are at an all-time high. 

You have angst, feeling that most people can’t be trusted. The future of our nation is a ‘significant source of stress’ in your life, regardless of where you fall politically, data show.

This can prompt you to curse an average of 80 to 90 times a day.

‘We are falling apart,’ says Waldinger. ‘We’re all angry and afraid now, even if what we’re each afraid of may be very different.’

It can also make you a downer at parties – if you even go to parties, which you probably don’t. 

A study earlier this year showed that only 4.1% of Americans attend social gatherings on weekends.

This particular statistic stuns even Waldinger, who has been studying adult relationships for decades and helped coin the phrase ‘social fitness’, referring to the importance of healthy people staying proactive about their relationships and social connections just as they do their physical well-being.

‘There are more and more factors drawing us toward isolation,’ says the 74-year-old professor who admits that, like many men, he relies too heavily on his wife to make social plans.

‘Not nearly enough of us are calling friends up, inviting them over, making dates to go for walks or coffee. We really have to push ourselves to stay connected.’ 

It’s no wonder, then, that you’ve felt disconnected from your community, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic – and likely even more disconnected every time you read another poll telling you how disconnected you feel.

Perhaps, instead of socializing, you’re putting in your average of 2.5 hours of housework a day or two hours of physical activity a week. 

Or maybe you’re engrossed in one of the four books you’ll read this year, the two and a half hours of TV you watch daily, or the more than six hours you spend on screen generally.

There are plenty of other vices. Like overeating 3,800 calories a day compared to the recommended 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men. Or drinking, although recent alcohol consumption is at a 90-year low. 

Sex, too, isn’t much of a pastime lately, with the average American reportedly doing it only once a week, if that.

Not that it’s anybody’s business, but you’re on at least one prescription drug, have used at least one illegal drug, will have had between four and 10 sex partners in your lifetime and feel lonely at least once a month.

You speak only English. Odds are that you have traveled outside the country, although not beyond North America. And you’ve probably taken 1.4 trips by plane in the last year, even though you admit to having a fear of flying.

You likely pray at least once a month, although not every day, and you probably don’t attend religious services regularly, if at all. 

That said, statistics show you believe in God or a higher spirit, think humans have a soul or a spirit in addition to our physical bodies, and you have faith in something that approximates heaven where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded.

While still in the here and now, you’re probably taking lunch between noon and 1.00pm and eating dinner between 6.00 and 7.00pm — earlier in Pennsylvania, where folks dine at 5.37pm on average, and later in Washington D.C., where dinner’s served at about 7.10pm. 

You eat meat, probably more than once a day. You’re likely eating fast food at least once a week. 

And, in one of the more nauseating statistics revealed in recent years, it’s likely that you’re accidentally ingesting up to a pound of flies, maggots and other bugs each year.

Your bedtime is 11.37pm, by the way. That is, if you can sleep.