{"id":117029,"date":"2025-09-04T01:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/117029\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T01:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:17:10","slug":"americas-richest-generation-is-only-getting-richer-their-wealth-has-soared-over-the-past-four-deca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/117029\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s richest generation is only getting richer. Their wealth has soared over the past four deca"},"content":{"rendered":"

As younger generations struggle to buy their first homes<\/a>, boomers are accumulating wealth and tightening their grip on assets that millennials and Gen Z need to get richer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thanks to a perfect storm of economic luck<\/a>, such as affordable home prices and steady wages, boomers have accumulated a collective net worth of $82 trillion<\/a>\u2014 more than double that of Gen X<\/a> ($42 trillion) and four times that of millennials ($16 trillion), according to data from Investopedia.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The older generation\u2019s tight grip on their Wall Street investments is also a major contributor. As of early 2025<\/a>, boomers held about 54% of stocks, worth over $25 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data analyzed by The Motley Fool<\/a>. In comparison, millennials own 8.2% of stocks, worth $3.9 trillion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And over time, the generational wealth gap has only widened. Between 1983 and 2022, Americans 75 and older saw a sharp rise in their relative household wealth\u2014and people aged 65 and up had more than twice the average wealth and a homeownership rate (nearly 17 percentage points higher) than those under 65, according to new research<\/a> released last month from New York University<\/a>. The report\u2019s author, economics professor Edward Wolff, called the rise in older generation wealth a \u201cseismic shift.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe original title was \u2018The Disappearing Wealth of Young American Households.\u2019 However, on further inspection, it appears that the real story is the remarkable upswing in the net worth of older American households,\u201d Wolff wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While those under 35 own homes at about the same rate as in 1983, that rate hasn\u2019t kept up with older generations, who now own homes at even higher rates, Wolff found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both groups have more money in stocks, but boomers saw much bigger gains, which helped grow their wealth. And while both age groups took on more mortgage debt, it grew much faster for young people compared to their overall wealth.<\/p>\n

Boomers holding onto property are preventing millennials from climbing up the ladder\u00a0<\/p>\n

As millennials try to search for their first forever home, generational tension is deepening. Soaring home prices and limited supply<\/a> on the market are locking younger buyers out. What\u2019s more distressing for young folks is that boomers are choosing to hold onto their homes to pass on to their kids, or age<\/a> in place, reaping the benefits from increased home values.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Boomers whose children have already moved out are sitting in nearly 3 in 10 large homes in the U.S.\u2014that\u2019s twice as many large homes as millennials with kids, who own about 14.2% of the country\u2019s homes, according to 2024 data from Redfin.<\/a> Gen Z owns just a sliver (0.3%) of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year, existing home sales <\/a>fell to their lowest level in almost three decades, with limited Americans buying or selling on the market. While boomers continued to stay in place, the combination of limited buying and selling could make younger buyers more difficult to get in\u2014and eventually grow their wealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As younger generations struggle to buy their first homes, boomers are accumulating wealth and tightening their grip on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[35486,64,63,8197,99,164,6070,7747,1194,7688,5474,171,36228,187,1794,184,1793,1781,81627,42505,13259],"class_list":["post-117029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-americans","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baby-boomers","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-gen-x","tag-gen-z","tag-homes","tag-housing","tag-investment","tag-markets","tag-millenials","tag-money","tag-pension","tag-personal-finance","tag-retirement","tag-savings","tag-savings-accounts","tag-young-adults","tag-young-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}