In addition to heartwarming family lore and sentimental trinkets, older generations are set to pass down a staggering amount of financial value over the coming decades in the largest wealth transfer in history.

People born before 1964—baby boomers and the pre-WWII babies known as the silent generation—hold 64% of the nation’s $190 trillion of wealth, per the Federal Reserve. And they are expected to leave behind $84 trillion to their descendants in the coming two decades, according to Cerulli Associates.

Boomer asset inventory

Much of this will be in the form of stock and bond investments that have grown on the backs of markets that boomed as the boomers bloomed. After the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew almost thirtyfold since 1985, boomers have an average $242,200 stashed away in their 401(k)s, according to Fidelity.

They’re also big possessors of real estate, the value of which has swelled in the decades since they bought their starter home for roughly what a nice flat-screen TV costs today.

• Boomers own 37% of the homes in the US while making up a little more than 20% of the population, according to the Census Bureau.
• And they have the keys to 57% of vacation homes, and 58% of investment income-generating rental properties, per the National Association of Realtors.

Meanwhile, inheriting a house might be the only way many millennials can afford homeownership—45% of people born between 1981 and 1996 don’t own their dwelling.

Sometimes the inheritance is a rug store: Boomers own private companies collectively worth almost $8 trillion, including 41% of US small businesses, per government data. But many retiring entrepreneurs aren’t passing them down to their kids Succession-style, choosing to instead sell their mom-and-pop establishments to enterprising millennials.

A funeral isn’t a wealth transfer prerequisite. Some generous members of the older generations are already using their nest eggs to help their kids and grandkids handle house down payments, private school tuition, and student loans. Besides covering costs as they come up, there’s another benefit: Yearly gifts of $18,000 for an individual or $36,000 for a couple are exempt from taxes.

Big picture: Millennials are on track to become the richest generation in history as they inherit the wealth of their parents and grandparents—a phenomenon that’ll transform jobs, housing, and investment markets.—SK

A group of Americans who couldn’t open their own bank accounts until 1974 are about to come into some serious cash. Women are expected to inherit the lion’s share of the wealth passed along in the Great Wealth Transfer—with one Bank of America expert estimating they’ll get as much as 70%.

Research by McKinsey shows that women will control around two-thirds of the private wealth in the US by 2030 in what amounts to a major gender shift.

What makes the transfer so gendered? Before the assets go to children, they’ll often go to surviving spouses. The Bank of America Institute estimates that ~$54 trillion will end up with surviving spouses—and 95% of those will be women. The stats in actuarial tables show:

• Women in the US outlive men by an average of five years.
• In heterosexual marriages, women are on average about two years younger than their husbands.

And women inherit as children as well as spouses: Women from younger generations will also inherit about $47 trillion, BofA found.

As for industries that cater to people who don’t wait for things to go on sale…they’ll have to adjust. Segments of the luxury market that traditionally appealed to men will have to adapt to a broader group of customers. For example, women’s watches are becoming a bigger share of that luxury market, per CNBC.

The wealth management industry is also expected to work harder to woo female clients. And with good reason: McKinsey found that 70% of widows switch to a new financial institution for wealth management within a year of their spouse’s death.

Women are expected to pay it forward…and not just to their kids. Across both income levels and generations, women are more likely to give to charity than men, research from Indiana University shows. Philanthropic organizations can anticipate more donations as women’s wealth grows.—AR

In a word: Yep. Some middle-class adults might inherit their parents’ houses or leftover savings, but other than that, most of the multi-trillion-dollar wealth transfer is only relevant to the families that are least strapped for cash.

Who’s getting money: According to federal data…

• The richest 10% of households in the US will be responsible for about two-thirds of the impending hand-me-down.
• Within that, the research firm Cerulli Associates projects that the top 1.5% will account for 42% of transfers through 2045.
• The lower-earning 50% of households hold less than 4% of the nation’s wealth.
• White families hold more than 80% of the nation’s wealth. More than one million high-net-worth investors are now Black, Asian, Hispanic, or Latin, per UBS, but it’s an overall incremental gain.

The rich can count on getting richer: Ninety-four percent of the richest fifth of Baby Boomers expect to give their kids inheritance, making them more than twice as likely as the lowest-earning fifth to pass on some riches, according to a November study.

Keeping it in the family has intensified wealth inequality

America’s top 10% has made exponential wealth gains since 1990, while the bottom 50% has largely stagnated. A major reason: The most successful boomers were typically white and already rich, so they had money to invest in burgeoning real estate and financial markets, and they didn’t face housing discrimination.

• The S&P 500 has skyrocketed more than 2,800% (not adjusted) since 1983, around the time that corporate workers started getting into index funds.
• The average price of a house in the US has gone up ~500% over the same time period.

It might impact policy debates: As inequality grows and non-1% white-collar workers start to feel disadvantaged, companies could end up advocating for the government to pick up more of the slack in evening things out, so they don’t have to, Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at the consulting firm RSM, told the NYT in 2023. “It’ll have nothing to do with social justice…and everything to do with bottom line.”—ML

Some members of generations anticipating a windfall from their parents and grandparents to pass are likely to only inherit disappointment.

That’s because those holding the largest portion of the wealth are choosing to enjoy it now rather than pass it along.

• Worries about not having enough money to pay for medical expenses have boomers hesitant to pass along that wealth while they are still alive.
• Inflation and longer life expectancy are also giving some pause about bequeathing their money before they die.
• Then there are those adopting the, “You can’t take it with you” mentality. Luxury spending is up the past two quarters, per Fortune, largely on the strength of older, wealthier generations dropping big bucks on expensive items.

Sum confusion: Gen Zers and millennials are expecting to inherit ~$320,000, according to USA Today Blueprint. A survey by Alliant Credit Union said more than half of millennials think they’ll get at least $350,000. However, that Alliant survey showed 55% of boomers are planning to leave less than $250,000, so some of the younger generations’ expectations are likely out of whack.

What inheritance? For most people, being willed just $250,000 sounds like a nice problem to have. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, only one-third of white families and a tenth of Black families will receive any inheritance, and more than half of those won’t exceed $50,000.—DL

Just when unprecedented wealth is about to be handed down and rich people and their lawyers mastered the art of inheritance sleight-of-hand, the current estate and gift tax system could change as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) is set to expire in 2025—unless Congress acts to renew it.

This year…with the TCJA in place, federal estate taxes, which are paid before the assets are distributed to heirs, range from 18%-40% for amounts over $13.99 million per individual. Some states also have their own estate taxes, as well as inheritance taxes paid by the heirs.

How’s that working out? In theory, the federal government taxes inheritances primarily through gift and estate taxes. But in reality, explains NYU tax law professor Daniel Hemel, the richest people in the country pass down about $200 billion a year without paying any estate tax. Numerous legal loopholes, shrinking IRS budgets, and lobbyists representing the mega wealthy have slowly chipped away at these taxes, leaving them with about as much bite as the infant rolling around in their untaxed, $13 million trust.

• In 2017, Congress passed the TCJA, a signature piece of legislation from President Trump’s first term that—among other massive overhauls to the country’s tax code—doubled the federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer tax exemption.
• This meant that rich people could leave their grandchildren up to $11.2 million without any federal taxes needing to be paid. That threshold jumped to $13.6 million last year because of inflation.

So what might happen to your $20M inheritance? The most likely scenario is that Senate and House Republicans will toss an extension to the estate tax exemption in the proposed $4.5 trillion worth of cuts their party is already putting together in a massive new tax bill. Some Republicans have even pitched eliminating the estate tax altogether, a move that could cost the government an additional $300 billion over the next decade.—MM