This seismic financial shift involves the oldest Americans — mostly Baby Boomers born between the mid-1940s and mid-1960s — who have collectively amassed huge amounts of wealth, and are starting to transfer it to their heirs.
“Certainly, the quantity of wealth that’s going to get transmitted over the next five to 15 years is greatly in excess of anything that’s been transmitted in the past,” Danforth told The Independent.
Here’s what you need to know about the phenomenon, and who stands to benefit the most.
How much wealth is on the move?
A 2024 report, by wealth management firm Cerulli Associates, projects that $124 trillion will be transferred through 2048.
According to the report, about $100 trillion of that will come from Baby Boomers and older generations, which includes the Silent Generation (born between the late 1920s and mid-1940s).
Who will benefit the most?
Not all younger generations will experience this transfer equally. Millennials (born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s) are expected to inherit the most over the next 25 years, at $46 trillion, the report says.
Generation X (born between the mid-1960s and early 1980s) will see the greatest transfer over the next 10 years, inheriting an estimated $14 trillion, compared to millennials’ $8 trillion, according to the report.
The “Great Wealth Transfer” isn’t just about older Americans leaving their wealth to their kids, either. About $18 trillion of the total $124 trillion is expected to go to charity, the report reveals.
Some wealthy people have started to rethink how much they actually want to leave their children, Danforth explained.
“I think many very wealthy people are rethinking how much they need to leave to their kids,” he said. “Because there are some disadvantages of creating independently wealthy people who are not otherwise self-sufficient.”
In the U.S., the individual passing down the inheritance has control over where it goes — which isn’t the case in all places, according to Reid Weisbord, a distinguished professor of law at Rutgers Law School. For example, residents of France usually can’t fully disinherit their children.
“For the most part, the person who owns property during life gets to decide to whom it will go at death,” Weisbord told The Independent. “That’s not true in other countries. It means in this country, you get to disinherit your children, should you wish to. Most people don’t choose to do that, but you could.”
The “Great Wealth Transfer” is certain to be a major event over the next 20 years, according to the World Economic Forum.
“It will help determine who creates real world investment and how much money is available for private sector investment,” the group states.