Young People Are About to Get Rich in a Massive Transfer of Generational Wealth

6 min readNov 29, 2020

Typically, when you click or tap on an article about young people and their relationship with money, the author proceeds to shit on young people.

That will not happen in this article. In fact, I intend to do the complete opposite.

I’m a staunch proponent of people younger than me.

As a proud member of Generation X (I missed being a millennial by six years), people in their 20s and 30s generally inspire me. They keep me focused on the present and what I want to accomplish in the future, using the past as little more than an informed lens into how to be better and help make it all happen.

I regret briefly jumping on the bandwagon that lamented a surge in millennial interest in the stock market this past Spring into Summer. I reconsidered my position and realized that this dissing of young people by mostly older people (white men, in particular) isn’t helpful or nuanced.

I hesitated to introduce this subject into our personal financial equation. It’s an uncomfortable subject to bring up. For legitimate reasons, we don’t want to think about our parents dying. We also don’t want the same old white male critics to brand anybody younger than them who does things differently than them as lazy and “making all the classic mistakes.”

You lack work ethic! You not only burden your parents by moving back in with them, now you’re going to rest on the assumption of an inheritance!!

At the same time as I experienced this hesitation, I was reading research and articles like the one from The Economist about the wealth transfer millennials can expect to receive. It’s real. We’re not all going to inherit money. Some of us will inherit way less or much more than others. As with anything else, assess and anticipate your situation and plan accordingly.

Treat it like Social Security. You’re not going to rely on it. However, you shouldn’t act as if it doesn’t exist. Cynics argue that Social Security will not be around for millennials or even Generation X. This is alarmist bull.

You can literally go online right now and see how much money you’ll receive each month based on your earnings history and age you intend to collect. Most of us will collect one or two thousand dollars per month somewhere between 62 and 70 years of age.

If I can reasonably assume $2,000 a month starting in my 60s alongside a lump sum of $250,000 (which I can hypothetically pay out to myself at a rate of $12,500 a year over 20 years), I need to consider it in conjunction with everything else I’m doing now.

Even if it happens on a subconscious level, I think many young people realize this eventuality. And it influences how they manage their money today. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this.

While I expect my daughter to create a life and attendant personal financial plan of her own as she heads into adulthood, I’m also saving for her. I’m accumulating wealth on her behalf that she can use when she needs it and inherit when I’m dead.

At age 17, she knows approximately how much money she stands to have access to when she turns 18. This factors into her college-related plans. It’s no different for her to look ahead to how much wealth she can expect to inherit from me as she starts making longer-duration plans.

There’s also a flip side to this. Not every young person will participate in this transfer of wealth. Some boomers have nothing to pass on. Or they will not pass it on for myriad reasons. If you’re in this situation, strategize how you spend, save, and invest now through that reality.

Young People Are About to Get Rich in a Massive Transfer of Generational Wealth

Written by Srsajol wsahrtg