The Great Wealth Transfer: How Many Millennials Will Get Rich?

A wealthy couple takes a photo in front of their private jet.
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The Great Wealth Transfer — wealth transferred from boomers to younger generations such as millennials — through 2045 will total $84.4 trillion, according to a Cerulli report. A whopping $72.6 trillion in assets will be transferred to heirs, while $11.9 trillion will be donated to charitable organizations.

Other estimates place this transfer at as high as $140 trillion, “marking one of the most significant wealth transfers in history,” according to CFAAC.

And one generation is set to significantly benefit from this transfer of wealth.

Millennials Are Projected To Inherit a Great Deal of Wealth

By 2030, millennials will hold five times as much wealth as they have today — and are “expected to inherit more than $68 trillion from their predecessors in the Great Transfer of Wealth” — according to a Coldwell Banker report.

“There is already a large and growing population of millennial millionaires, and there will be even more created over the next decade according to projections,” Craig Hogan, vice president of luxury for Coldwell Banker Real Estate, said in the report. “The big question is, ‘What will this generation do with their wealth when the Great Wealth Transfer takes place?'”

Indeed, the report noted that (as of 2019) that there are 618,000 millennial millionaires, accounting for 2% of the total U.S. millionaire population and 0.2% of the general U.S. population. That number is almost certainly higher today.

Further, millennials and Gen Zers expect to inherit $320,000 on average, according to a USA Today survey, while 15% expect amounts of more than $500,000 and 6% expect upward of $1 million.

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