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.
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.
There was a segment on NPR recently where they were talking about how many Boomers are selling their houses to pay for medical bills and long-term care, leaving little to nothing for their children.
My Boomer parents had one of those “I’m spending my kids’ inheritance” bumper stickers on one of their RVs and it was no joke. New RVs every couple of years, driving around the country part of each summer, new boats every couple of years, two timeshares, one in Branson, one on the gulf coast FL, two houses, one in the Adirondacks, one outside Orlando, flying back and forth twice a year, a new gold wing every couple of years. They don’t believe they’re rich.
My father worked his whole life as a telephone lineman, retired at 55. My mother worked swing shift in processing at Kodak. Neither started wealthy. My dad had to purchase my grandfather’s farmhouse. My mother didn’t inherit anything. And they didn’t think one second about passing anything down.
Placing the blame on medical costs for the generation as a whole is letting them off the hook, again. Boomers are too selfish to pass anything down anyway.
Union workers with pensions?
Pensions, yes, though my father lost his sometime after he retired. I don’t think the phone company was union, but Kodak likely was. Both parents were anti-union. Both were forced into retirement as Kodak passed on digital photography and phone companies started consolidating.
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
Watching Married with Children and realizing this dude is working as a store clerk and supporting a family of 5 on that single wage without actually living paycheck to paycheck and then realizing this isn’t a fictional representation of the timeperiod, is really goddamn depresssing.
In less than 40 years the inequality of wealth distribution and the cost of living has changed so drastically that then they could live on one paycheck and now you only get by with a minimum of two.
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
That has nothing to do with capitalism. Germany and UK are pretty capitalist (probably more capitalist than US) and yet they either have a functioning private medicine or a completely nationalised one.
Germany and the UK are demonstrably less capitalist than the US, both because they are social democracies with large, taxpayer-funded social welfare systems, and because their economies are significantly more regulated by both state policies and widespread labor unions.
I disagree.
What an informative and well-argued counterpoint.
There’s rarely a point in arguing with people with crazy ideas like you have here, but ok.
European regulations tend to protect consumers, while American regulations tend to protect monopolies. Consumer protection doesn’t mean less capitalism, it actually promotes healthier competition.
Corporate protection does the opposite - it protects established market players from newcomers.
Lol “it’s not capitalism, because a nationalized healthcare is capitalism”
The profit motive of capitalist controlled entities is completely capitalism; it’s basically a textbook case of capitalism. Don’t fool yourself by saying the countries with more socialized healthcare are somehow more capitalist to the one that doesn’t.
Wut?
Regulations are inefficiencies, because corporations with profit motive will of course make good decisions for everyone
They do it all the time.
