WASHINGTON – The recent recession wiped out nearly two decades of Americans’ wealth, according to government data released Monday, with middle-class families bearing the brunt of the decline.

The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were back in 1992.

The data represents one of the most detailed looks to date of how the economic downturn altered the landscape of family finance. Over a span of three years, Americans watched progress that took almost a generation to accumulate evaporate.

The promise of retirement built on the inevitable rise of the stock market proved illusory for most. Homeownership, once heralded as a pathway to wealth, became an albatross.

Those findings underscore both the depth of the wounds of the financial crisis and how far many families remain from healing. If the recession set Americans back 20 years, economists say, the road forward is sure to be a long one. And so far, the country has only seen a halting recovery.

“It’s hard to overstate how serious the collapse in the economy was,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “We were in freefall.”

The recession caused the greatest upheaval among the middle class. Only roughly half of middle-class Americans remained on the same economic rung during the downturn, the Fed found. Their median net worth — the value of assets such as homes, cars and stocks minus any debt — suffered the biggest drops. The wealthiest families, by contrast, actually saw their median net worth rise slightly.

The survey showed fewer families are carrying credit card balances, and those who do have less debt. The median balance dropped 16 percent, from $3,100 in 2007 to $2,600 in 2010. The Fed also found that the percentage of Americans who don’t have any debt at all rose to a quarter of families.

But that progress was undermined by other factors, leaving the median level of family debt unchanged. The report said more families reported taking out education loans. Nearly 11 percent said they were at least 60 days late paying a bill, up from 7 percent in 2007. Not only were Americans still facing significant debts, but they were making less money. Median income fell nearly 8 percent to $45,800 in 2010. The median value of stock market-based retirement accounts declined 6 percent to $44,000.

But it was the implosion of the housing market that inflicted much of the pain. The value of Americans’ stake in their homes fell by 42 percent between 2007 and 2010 to just $55,000, according to the Fed. Middle-class Americans rely on housing for a larger part of their net worth. For some, it accounts for just over half of their assets. That means every step downward is felt more acutely.