Generational Wealth Statistics

Generational wealth is the assets, businesses and financial capacity that one generation builds and passes to the next. The defining trend of the next two decades is the great wealth transfer: Cerulli projects that USD 124 trillion will change hands through 2048, the largest intergenerational handoff on record.

This page gathers widely cited generational wealth statistics from Cerulli, the Federal Reserve, UBS, the Pew Charitable Trusts and peer-reviewed research, organized by theme. To go deeper, see our guides on intergenerational wealth, the great wealth transfer, and what is generational wealth.

The Great Wealth Transfer

• An estimated USD 124 trillion in wealth will transfer through 2048 (Cerulli Associates, 2025).

• Of that total, USD 105 trillion is expected to flow to heirs and USD 18 trillion to charity (Cerulli Associates, 2025).

• Nearly USD 100 trillion will transfer from Baby Boomers and older generations, about 81% of all transfers (Cerulli Associates, 2025).

• Cerulli's earlier 2021 estimate put the transfer through 2045 at USD 84.4 trillion, with USD 72.6 trillion to heirs and USD 11.9 trillion to charity (Cerulli Associates, 2021).

• Roughly USD 35.8 trillion, about 42% of all transfers, will come from high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth households, which make up just 1.5% of all households (Cerulli Associates, 2021).

Who Holds Wealth Today

• There are nearly 60 million USD millionaires worldwide, holding about USD 226 trillion in combined assets (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2024).

• The number of USD millionaires rose 1.2% in 2024, an increase of more than 684,000 people (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2025).

• The US accounts for about 40% of the world's millionaires while representing roughly 4% of the global population (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2025).

• The US created more than 1,000 new millionaires per day in 2024, adding 379,000 over the year (UBS Global Wealth Report, 2025).

• The median net worth of a typical White US household in 2022 was USD 285,000, compared with USD 44,900 for Black households and USD 61,600 for Hispanic households (Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022).

• For every USD 100 in wealth held by White households, Black households held about USD 15 in 2022 (Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022).

Mobility Across Generations

• The share of children who out-earn their parents fell from about 90% for those born in 1940 to about 50% for those born in 1980 (Chetty et al., Science, 2017).

• At the median of parent income, the share of children earning more than their parents fell from 93% for the 1940 birth cohort to 45% for the 1980 cohort (Chetty et al., Science, 2017).

• Two out of three Americans have higher inflation-adjusted incomes than their parents did, while one-third earn less (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2012).

• 93% of children raised in the bottom income fifth grew up to earn more than their parents in absolute terms (Pew Charitable Trusts, 2012).

Keeping Wealth in the Family

• Between 2019 and 2022, the wealth of the typical Black family rose 61% and the typical Hispanic family rose 47%, versus 31% for the typical White family (Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022).

• Gen X is set to inherit the largest share of assets over the next 10 years, about USD 14 trillion, ahead of Millennials at USD 8 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2021).

• Millennials are projected to inherit the most of any generation over the next 25 years, about USD 46 trillion (Cerulli Associates, 2021).

The through-line is clear: a historic amount of wealth is moving between generations, it is highly concentrated, and absolute mobility has narrowed over time. Preparing the next generation matters as much as the assets themselves. To plan ahead, read the great wealth transfer and intergenerational wealth.