For years, financial news has been telling millennials that they will be saved at a later date. Over the next 20 years, $90 trillion will flow down the family tree from baby boomers and the Silent Generation. The numbers are really scary. It looks like the conclusion is clear. The story goes that millennials are going to be the richest generation ever. It’s an interesting story. It’s also not what it seems to be in important ways.
The promise is based on real math, but it doesn’t take into account a problem that can’t be fully captured by a spreadsheet: timing.
Between generations, about $124 trillion will change hands until 2048. The youngest millennials will be in their early fifties by the time most of that transfer takes place. The oldest will soon be able to retire. That’s not the time when getting a lot of money changes your life. It’s the time when a sudden windfall of money confirms a life that was chosen decades ago, for better or worse.
According to research from Realtor.com, if you buy your first home before you turn 30, your net worth will be about 22.5% higher by age 50 than if you wait just ten years longer. That window closes again. By age 52, the advantage of compounding is pretty much gone. Giving millennials an umbrella after the storm is over is like giving them an envelope.
There’s one more part of the inheritance story that doesn’t get much attention. According to a study by Alliant Credit Union in 2023, millennials think they will get around $350,000 when they die, while their parents think they will get around $250,000. That difference isn’t huge, but it does show that the numbers in most family accounts don’t quite match the expectations that have been raised by all the news about wealth transfers. That’s not even counting the costs of medical bills, long-term care, and the slow loss of retirement savings that comes with living longer than planned.
Another part of inheritance that isn’t as exciting is the “Great Stuff Transfer,” as some people have started to call it. The baby boomers gathered things. Plates of silver. Furniture from the past. Prints that have been framed from a trip to Florence in 1987. A lot of it has emotional value that is much higher than its resale value. The markets for furniture have changed. The price of silver has gone down. Millennials don’t know what to do with any of it because they often live in small spaces and already have a lot of stuff to deal with. Getting things that feel more like duties than gifts is a strange and quiet kind of grief.
We still don’t know how many families are talking about all of this in an open way. That’s clear for some. According to recent polls, 59% of parents have already given or plan to give financial help in the form of down payments, cash gifts, or help with closing costs. Everything changes when that kind of early transfer takes place. It’s not just giving money to someone. It changes the choices they can make. An estate lawyer named Barry E. Janay made it clear: an early transfer doesn’t pay one dividend; it changes a family’s whole financial future.
But that early help isn’t given to everyone the same way. Rich families can give their homes to other people. Families that don’t have it don’t use that system at all. The wealth transfer, no matter how big it is overall, is making a gap bigger that it was never going to close.
As I watch this happen, I get the feeling that the story of the “Great Wealth Transfer” has always been more comforting than true. It was told to a generation that lived through the 2008 financial crisis, had a lot of student debt, and saw housing prices rise out of reach. This generation is still mostly blamed for spending too much on brunch. A lot of them will get their inheritance. It will help in some ways. But the idea that it will fix the money problems millennials have had for thirty years is too optimistic. Money can only fix things that were broken thirty years ago.
