- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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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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
Lazy millennials can’t even be born on time.
Pull yourself up by the bootstraps and travel back in time.
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!
Wouldn’t that be a pleasant surprise. I better start learning about time travel
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.
for those curious but lazy, married with children was started filming in 1987 and supposed to take place in schaumberg illinois, so historically those homes were 4x less expensive than today.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=historical+home+value+Schaumburg+Il+in+1987
Glad to see everyone in the family was counted
Yeah and in later seasons it was even 7 when the new kid came along and Peggy’s mom moved in with them.
They made a point of representing Al as a half broke loser with a 30 year old car tho. You too can live like that if you leave the city
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.
100% this. Gentle reminder that Jeff Bezos now has 187 billion dollars. Billion!!
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.
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?
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.
Based on?
Their feelings ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Shit, more than I was expecting lol.
Replied above.
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.
Regulations are inefficiencies, because corporations with profit motive will of course make good decisions for everyone
They do it all the time.
On a scale from 1 to 10 how delusional are you?
69
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.
GenX here as well. My mother died horribly of cancer when I was 13 and my father left about two weeks after her death and I was legally transferred to the State’s custody.
I’ve been told I’m “lucky” in that I’ll never have to shoulder my parent’s debt. So, you other people don’t know how lucky it was to be an orphan! But no really, a finical planner literally indicated to me that, THAT was a positive. And somehow that’s really colored my opinion on where we are as a society.
What do you mean by shoulder your parent’s debt? Do you live somewhere that debts can transfer to children?
Yeah here in Tennessee we have filial laws that puts some of that debt that parents rack up on the backs of the children. TCA § 71-5-115.
That’s horrifying 🥲
Sounds like a great reason to GTFO of Tennessee
As much as I liked to blame Governor HVAC. It’s really the fact that the Frist family exists.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-can-adult-child-become-liable-parents-nursing-home-a-perry
Looks like that is very narrow in scope and has only been applied one time throughout the entire us.
Effectively the chances of inheriting debt through this is zero.
Gen X here. I do not expect any inheritance at all.
And how much of this “fascination” with generational wealth transfer is actually companies salivating over potential profits?
Elder millenial here. I expect no inheritance from my mom or grandparents and no social security. I’m one of the lucky ones though. My dad died ten years ago and left me just enough to make a down payment on a house.
The moral of the story is, give your parents cigarettes and hope the cancer kills them quick before the bills can pile up.
They summoned a new inheritance tax over here, they sold it to us in the shape of: to get more taxes from the rich.
But those idiots don’t run around giving away money, they hand out businesses and stocks to their family or other assets.
So who are once again ending up paying even more money? Hmm? Yeah that’s right, if my dad manages to have some money left the goddamn tax criminals will gobble that up even though i probably need it to pay for his funeral.
Only 1 in every 500 Americans is affected by the inheritance tax.
Hmm? Yeah that’s right, if my dad manages to have some money left the goddamn tax criminals will gobble that up even though i probably need it to pay for his funeral.
You need more than $5 million to pay for a funeral? Because there won’t be any taxes on the first 5 million.
I’m not talking about your american taxes, i’m not an American.
Maybe state where you’re from tho
If that’s in the US there’s a very good chance there’s not enough money in the estate or inheritance to trigger it. We’re talking in the several millions.
In the US the threshold is 13 mil before inheritance taxes kick in, so basically never.
The ultrarich still dont pay it here. The con they use is setting up a charity that they dump hundreds of millions into and then give their children outrageous lifetime salaries and full discretion to throw parties/events/travel/etc in the name of the “charity.” Since no one else actually donates, no one cares about how thr money is spent. They kids get the same ultra wealthy life style with none of the downsides, with media accolades and “Charitywashing” rarr rarrs to boot.
Chances are, corporations are already plotting how to get the boomers to spend as much as possible before they pass away.
lol…. Transfer. I was taken out of my father’s will because told him that Trump was a traitor to his country.
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.
My parents have their beliefs, but they are good people at heart. I’m trans, leftist, and atheist, going against everything my parents are or believe in and I’m still in the will. And my brother who has recently sort of cut them off after a rough situation with them is still in too.
If we’ll get anything of worth at all? that’s the question. I’ve just always kept it in my head that I’ll never get an inheritance at all, much less anything of value. It’s not worth planning around or thinking about unless you are coming from wealth, and even then, not to the degree you see stories about.
And I’m just not going to compromise on myself or my beliefs in order to keep my name in one.
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
Yeah. He’s pathetic. As you could guess… we do t talk anymore.
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.
Oh no, my milkshake!
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.
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.
Kick ass. I’m gen x with 2 young kids and this is pretty much my plan.
Gen X as well, and never expected an inheritance. That just seems so wrong to be looking forward to a loved one passing. When my Mom brought it up, my brothers and I each said individually that her savings are for her, not to leave us.
My teens may be too young to think in those terms but their best bet is for me to kick off now while they’re in college and I have huge life insurance to cover that. I’ve never talked in terms of leaving an inheritance and am certainly more worried about how to afford living out my retired years
Yep. Same here. That said, both of my parents are already deceased, and I don’t have anything to show for it, which is fine, since I never expected anything in the first place.
I’m going to try to do better for my daughter.
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)
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.
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.
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.
Lol yeah, we always joked about inheriting debt!
No transfer for me. My boomer dad already sold our family’s property to slumlords
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.
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.
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
Luckily I live in a country with universal healthcare.
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.
I’m 27 with parents who just turned 70. Idk where that plays to this, but you are much closer to your parent’s age.
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.
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.
