Younger generations have none percent of the wealth to make these decisions compared to the boomers.

That seems like an obvious observation?

People accumulate wealth over a life time of work. It would be entirely expect that younger generations have less wealth than older generations.

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ghushn3 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

If that was true, you'd expect the younger professionals of today would have comparative amounts of wealth to the boomers when they were young professionals. It's absolutely not the case. Each generation is getting poorer and poorer as they hit the same benchmarks.

This tracks with broad trends of wealth inequality increasing as well.

So no, it's not just "they haven't accumulated yet", because it's not clear they will have the opportunity to do so.

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naveen99 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Boomers had a lot more sibling and lot smaller inheritances coming to them. Kids these days will inherit a lot more and share a lot less with siblings.

	▲	prerok 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Capital of the 21st century by Piketty. Highly recommended reading. It points out how slow degradation will happen. You are right in a sense. But it's still a very bad prognosis.
	▲	adaml_623 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Unless Boomers live long enough to spend the inheritance on nursing homes

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JumpCrisscross 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> you'd expect the younger professionals of today would have comparative amounts of wealth to the boomers when they were young professionals. It's absolutely not the case

Source? The data I’ve seen indicate the median millennial is wealthier than the median boomer was at their age.

	▲	ghushn3 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... Boomers held significantly higher percentages of capital than millenials or genx holding age steady. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27123 Studies have shown wealth declining for millenials while increasing for boomers. https://www.self.inc/info/generational-wealth-gap/ And it's across multiple forms of wealth.

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DonHopkins 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The point isn't comparing boomers and younger generations buying diamonds NOW, but when they marry. Boomers typically don't wait till they're 60 to get married.

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j45 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Historically very few generations start out with wealth when they’re young? :)

Most of it is earned over time.

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karaterobot 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Younger Americans (millennials and Gen Zers) owned $1.35 for every $1 of wealth owned by baby boomers at the same age.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/community-development/publication...

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moate 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Um, I'm going to go ahead and point out this, probably not super relevant data point

"While trailing Gen Xers for the beginning of their adult lives, younger American households’ average wealth began to exceed that of Gen Xers at about age 30, reflecting historically high wealth levels following the COVID-19 pandemic." I have a feeling that average wealth adjustment falls very heavily on the home owners, which is only just above half of all the cohort. Had a similar thing happened to boomers in 89, almost 70% would have benefitted.

I think it's also worth pointing out: The share of wealth held by boomers in 89 (why 89? Because they didn't have data before that. It's why the graphs start in a weird spot and why it's not a great study unless you're trying to pull out a "gotcha" stat) represented almost 20% of the total wealth in the country. "Millenials/GenZ" has a hold on only HALF that percentage.

Doctors may hate your one weird statistic, but socio-demographists probably don't...

	▲	JumpCrisscross 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> have a feeling that average wealth adjustment falls very heavily on the home owners, which is only just above half of all the cohort This is also true for other generations.

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nyc_data_geek 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>At the same age

Boomers have had significantly longer and better sustained market conditions to grow their wealth.