Boomer wealth transfer will mostly enrich the already affluent, study shows

The baby boomer generation is sitting on nearly $93 trillion in assets. But the actual wealth that will make its way to their children and grandchildren is far smaller than the headlines suggest—and it will flow almost entirely to people who are already rich.

A July report from Visa Business and Economic Insights examined what economists call the "great wealth transfer," the intergenerational passing of assets that has been the subject of considerable speculation and sometimes inflated projections. Previous estimates have pegged the total as high as $124 trillion. The Visa analysis cuts through that number by accounting for what actually happens to boomer wealth before it reaches the next generation: mortgage debt, other liabilities, taxes, charitable donations, and the cost of retirement itself.

Once you subtract all of that, the inheritable pool shrinks to $36 trillion. That's still a vast sum, but it tells a different story than the $100 trillion figure that circulates in popular discussion. "When people throw around $100 trillion, they don't think about all the deductions that have to come from it," Wayne Best, Visa's chief economist, explained. "You have to subtract liabilities, and boomers actually have a lot of mortgage debt." The analysis also deliberately excluded the top 1% of U.S. households—those worth at least $13 million—because their spending patterns skew so far from the general population that including them would distort the picture.

For the households that do receive inheritances, the average windfall will be $515,000. That's a meaningful sum, but it's also a number that reveals the core finding of the report: most of this wealth will go to people who don't need it to survive. Of the $36 trillion transferred, only $8 trillion is expected to be spent. The rest will be saved or invested, accumulating in accounts that are already substantial.

This concentration of inherited wealth at the top of the income ladder has real but limited effects on the broader economy. The $8 trillion in actual spending will boost average annual consumer spending growth by roughly 0.1 percentage points, lifting it to about 2.1% per year over the next two decades. It's a modest lift—the kind of thing that shows up in economic data but doesn't reshape the landscape.

Where that spending does concentrate, however, tells you something about who is receiving these inheritances and what their lives already look like. Affluent heirs are expected to spend inherited money on home improvements, travel, and automobiles. Airlines, cruise lines, and certain retail categories will see increased business. So will the home improvement sector. A wealthy person who inherits from a wealthy parent likely already owns a home; the inheritance simply gives them the means to renovate it, upgrade it, or buy a second one. The same logic applies to travel and transportation—these are discretionary purchases made by people whose basic needs are already met.

The wealth transfer, in other words, will deepen the already significant gap between those who inherit substantial assets and those who don't. It will enrich the affluent further, fuel spending in luxury-adjacent sectors, and do little to alter the fundamental economic position of younger Americans without wealthy parents. The great wealth transfer is real. It's just not the equalizing force some might have imagined.