this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Experts say baby boomers will give more than $50 trillion to their heirs. But for many, health care costs will claim the bulk of that wealth.

The story goes that baby boomers are going to give tens of trillions of dollars to their heirs over the next few decades.

The “generational wealth transfer” has become a media fascination, both for its eye-popping size and because it might help younger generations as they face doubts about their financial security.

That shift is already in the works, and will continue for a couple of decades. According to wealth management firm Cerulli Associates, some $53 trillion will be passed down from boomers to their Gen X, millennial and Gen Z heirs, as well as to charities. That includes both gifts during their lifetimes and inheritances afterward.

But the overwhelming cost of health care for older people means most people in those later generations won’t inherit much, even if their elders seem well-off today.

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[–] preppietechie@midwest.social 163 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Well, if Gen X and Millennials wanted their own fortunes they should have planned ahead like boomers and been born back when a house cost $7,500.

/sarcasm

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 88 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Lazy millennials can't even be born on time.

[–] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and travel back in time.

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wait. What if these anonymous crypto whale accounts were created by future us shortly after we discovered time travel? We just don't know we own them yet!

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[–] rivermonster@lemmy.world 103 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's because the real wealth transfer has been to the billionaires and close to billionaires.

Nothing will fix that short of a cyclical historic repetition of the French Revolution.

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[–] WatDabney@sopuli.xyz 95 points 10 months ago

I'm GenX. I've spent my entire life watching the Boomers fuck things up, then having to wade through the debris they leave in their wake.

I'm not expecting that to change now.

[–] Fades@lemmy.world 92 points 10 months ago (15 children)

Thank you every piece of shit asshole that bucks against the idea of universal healthcare. Fuck you a billion times over. Price gouging out of control capitalist bullshit

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[–] crsu@lemmy.world 68 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 59 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Shit. Throw in a few reverse mortgages to pay for Meemaw and Pop pop's cruise every 6 months, and we won't even get that generational housing.

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[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 59 points 10 months ago (3 children)

lol…. Transfer. I was taken out of my father’s will because told him that Trump was a traitor to his country.

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My mom disowned me at 16 (my sister got everything) and my dad left all his money to his 5th wife.

Transfer happened, just not to me or my half-brother.

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[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That is sad. But also trying to blackmail children with not giving them one's money after one doesn't need them anymore is even more sad

[–] Pratai@lemmy.ca 17 points 10 months ago

Yeah. He’s pathetic. As you could guess… we do t talk anymore.

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Boy, people like that really do make politics their entire personalities. My dad is the same way. He hasn't written me out of his will... yet, AFAIK. But he's going to piss his money away all the same.

[–] Got_Bent@lemmy.world 54 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'm Gen X with an adult daughter.

I have never received a penny from a deceased family member and have watched too many people getting into nasty fights over the crumbs left by their recently departed loved ones.

It's become a life priority to leave my daughter a clean estate, with no debt encumbrance, and no possibility for any other person to get at it.

At present, if I were to take my leave from this mortal coil today, she would net roughly $300k.

Part of my plan is to get everything out of my estate and into her hands before healthcare takes it all. Fuck them.

The irony here is that she won't need it. She's done well for herself. I anticipate that when it's my turn to shake hands with the devil, she'll more likely than not use the proceeds for some charitable pursuit.

The point is that I want her to make that choice rather than giving some doctor his semi-annual Ferrari that he'll drive for six months then dispose of.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I know two people now who've had their father leave everything to a new spouse of a few years (the biological mother had passed away in both cases already) thinking the new spouse will take care of his children with it.

One set of children didn't fight it, and the other is considering fighting it as it's recent.

One spouse didn't help the children and one is acting like she won't.

So thank you for ensuring your daughter will be taken care of.

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Kick ass. I’m gen x with 2 young kids and this is pretty much my plan.

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[–] hark@lemmy.world 51 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Even ignoring the health care costs, the transfer isn't going to save anything. The vast majority of wealth is concentrated in a small number of families, so only those few will benefit anyway. It was never a generational problem, it was always a problem of wealth concentration among the rich.

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My mom was a boomer and died when I was a young adult.

Because she was wildly irresponsible with money, as many boomers were in the early internet days, and because of cancer, the only asset really left after she died was the house, which my step dad sold because they were upside down on it after the bubble burst. He didn’t really come out ahead on it.

I was left with nothing but her stuff to sell off. I made about $4k total on it, and it took months on eBay to even get that.

I hope it’s better for others, but I rather expect it won’t be unless they are already pretty well off -and- make a point to preserve as much as they can, which most won’t because “I earned it I’m going to spend it as I see fit”. (Which, you know, totally fair, but doesn’t help if you are banking on inheritance)

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 15 points 10 months ago

I want to sympathize with this since about the only asset worth anything from my boomer father when he died was what remained of good savings after selling his house.

The short version is that he got Alzheimer's, and we were forced to put him into a care facility. We sold off his house and dumped the money into a trust account so his power of attorney could use it for his needs (mainly paying for equipment and everything with regards to his failing health and the long term care facility). He was pretty smart with money but when the remainder of the funds from his house being sold were divided among his direct descendants, we were looking at 30-40k each.

My brother and I went in on a house together with the money and after the down payment, there wasn't much left, and now we each have about $2300 a month in mortgage payments instead of rent. Predictably, the house needs some pretty serious work, and we've been trying to tackle what we can on our own. The only real benefit we got from all this is that in 25 years or so, we won't have to pay the mortgage anymore, and the mortgage won't really increase over time; so we're kind of fixed in terms of rent increases.

We're considering this our "forever home" because we don't really want to move again and because we're going to do everything we can to make it ours. It has enough space to do that though some areas need a lot of work to get them where we want them.

It's just sad that his entire life of working and earning money and saving, being the penny pincher he was, only amounted to around $150k. Three siblings and lawyers fees later and we have to pool our inheritance to make enough cash to put a down payment on a house.

There's a lot of other contributing factors, which I won't get into here, but that's just so sad to me.

[–] Facebones@reddthat.com 7 points 10 months ago

I think a LOT of people underestimate the boomer "It's my money I do what I want" mentality.

These days, I wouldn't be surprised to see more boomers leaving their cash to republican campaigns and shit instead of their shit kids who moved away.

[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I grew up poor so wealth transfer wasn't really a phrase spoken at our house. I always thought inheritances were just plot points on tv or for the rich to maintain their power.

[–] greedytacothief@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Lol yeah, we always joked about inheriting debt!

[–] Nobody@lemmy.world 38 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The wealth the Boomers amassed decades ago was good enough to pay off a mortgage and pay for their retirement. It didn't include passing anything to the next generation. The money itself became borderline worthless because their "Greed is good" and "I've got mine. Fuck you" mindset quite literally destroyed the world. The economy is just as fucked as the planet.

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[–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 36 points 10 months ago

No transfer for me. My boomer dad already sold our family's property to slumlords

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 32 points 10 months ago

It's kind of ridiculous how rich people get everyone riled up about estate taxes that will barely impact them, if at all. It will impact the rich though, extensively if they're not careful with their arrangements.

[–] Chessmasterrex@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago

Then they find out that a parent put a reverse mortgage on the family home...

[–] viking@infosec.pub 27 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm just about 40, my parents are in their early 60's. When they pass on, I'm most likely already hitting retirement age myself. I don't need extra cash when I'm old.

[–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh, you will. When my grandmother had to rely on Medicare and the shitty insurance she got through retirement her healthcare cleaned out her bank account and most of her retirement

[–] viking@infosec.pub 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Luckily I live in a country with universal healthcare.

[–] ComradePorkRoll@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

First of all, good for you. Genuinely.

Second of all, please do your part to keep it that way. I'm not saying this is your new life goal but if anyone even brings up the idea of privatizing your healthcare system you tell them to move to America instead of fucking up what you have.

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[–] JoJoGAH@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

One of my mothers boomer quotes , "I'm going to spend my kids inheritance". She did too. She is now 84 and needs to sell and borrow. Good thing I believed her when she started saying this in 1988.

[–] rayyy@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago

for many, health care costs will claim the bulk of that wealth.

They system was designed that way. Save for retirement so corporate healthcare can get it.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'm fully aware my parents will die and leave me nothing, unless they leave me their debts. I have no children to burden.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 months ago

At least you don't have to accept the succession if they're worth less than the amount of debt they have.

[–] xX_fnord_Xx@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago

Thankfully, I've never imagined gaining anything from my mom when she passes some day. Thankfully her parents set up a trust so she isn't homeless, but when she finally gives in to assisted living, those bills will eat whatever is left.

She's always like, "but I'm leaving you the house!"

The house is full of worthless collectibles and smells terrible after decades of floods and cats. If she got hit by a bus tomorrow I'd probably sell it to one of those seedy We Buy Ugly Houses companies.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Oh neat, so our robust free market economy that is more meritocritous than anywhere else on earth is actually a giant sham, better hope you have rich parents!

All that stuff your parents told you your whole life about working hard studying hard and you'd be guaranteed to make it? Oops, they were wrong, now help them figure out how to access their Hulu account, again. What? You've barely eaten? Ah, pff, builds character!

If someone figures out a way to actually set up a business that soylent greens the boomers, I'll figure out how to do some exquisite cooking recipes with it.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

Our father locked up our property in legal hell to protect it from his evil siblings. But now we can do much of anything with it LOL other than keep paying taxes. That's generational debt lol.

Actually it's probably really smart because if you sell to slumlords, you are giving up your real wealth. Just let the properties gain momentum. One day for your kids to fight about. Just have 1 kid problem solved. But if he dies? Ok have two kids. Send one to the monstery or the convent. But what if they marry poor....hmm arrange marriages! What if they don't like that? ....teach them racism from the early moments in life....oh shit, this sounds like we are destined to recycle ♻️ hilter and his narzis. Yah maybe sell the house and go back to being poor. That's how we did it!

[–] AshMan85@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

Eat the rich

[–] ytsedude@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

I'm shocked.

[–] Kosmokomeno@infosec.pub 7 points 10 months ago

This is hilarious. They're gonna spend all their money clinging to life. The future they made by raping the future. and they won't even just leave!

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