The Great Wealth Transfer: Why It Might Not Be All Good News for Millennials
Written by
Yaël Bizouati-Kennedy
Edited by
Maria Concepcion
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Wealth transferred through 2045 will total $84.4 trillion — with a whopping $72.6 trillion in assets transferred to heirs, while $11.9 trillion will be donated to charities, according to a Cerulli report. But not every generation will benefit equally from this great wealth transfer from boomers.
“It’s a generation that has accumulated a greater percentage of wealth than any other generation ever has,” Mark Mirsberger, a certified public accountant and CEO of Dana Investment Advisors, told CNBC.
Yet, as CNBC further noted, boomers may not be handing down as much as their children think, and a slew of studies found a notable disconnect between how much millennials expect to inherit in the “great wealth transfer” and how much-aging boomers plan on leaving them.
For instance, a survey from Alliant Credit Union found that 53% of millennials expect to inherit at least $350,000 from their parents, yet 55% of boomers report that they’re planning to gift an inheritance of less than $250,000, according to Fortune.
What’s more, a lack of confidence in managing that money might also come into play. Indeed, while the “great wealth transfer” is underway and 15% of American adults expect to receive an inheritance in the next decade, according to a New York Life Wealth Watch survey, only 42% of adults who expect to receive an inheritance feel very comfortable financially handling the new wealth that will be passed down.
And millennials and Gen Zers feel the least confident, at 21% and 18%, respectively, according to Fortune.
“Millennials, and now Gen Z, have grown up amidst global and financial turmoil,” Suzanne Schmitt, head of financial wellness at New York Life, told Fortune, pointing to the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic hardships. “These two cohorts have witnessed economic changes in their formative years and may be more risk-averse when it comes to financial habits than their predecessors.”
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