Wednesday, June 14, 2023
The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners
1989 family wealth in the United States was roughly $38 trillion when accounting for inflation. By 2022, that number will be $140 trillion, with Baby Boomers holding half of that wealth.
$84 trillion is projected to be passed down from older Americans to millennials and Gen X by 2045, with $16 trillion to be transferred in the next ten years. The wealthiest 10 percent of households will be giving and receiving a majority of the transfers. Within that, the top 1 percent holds as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent.
Baby Boomers benefited greatly from the price growth within the financial and housing markets, with the average price of U.S. housing rising about 500 percent since 1983. Around this time, most baby boomers were buying their first homes.
Additionally, those who have invested in the stock market have found even more significant returns, seeing more than 2,800 percent growth since 1983, when index funds took off as mainstream investments for middle-class professionals. Boomers have benefited most from decades of price growth; however, most were already wealthy.
For more information see Talmon Joseph Smith “The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History is Here With Familiar (Rich) Winners” The New York Timesl, May 14, 2023.
Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (University of Virginia) for bringing this article to my attention.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/trusts_estates_prof/2023/06/the-greatest-wealth-transfer-in-history-is-here-with-familiar-rich-winners.html
Comments
Post a comment