No, I just formed a poor sentence. My sibling said it better.
The reason they don't segment by age is that at the wealth scale we're discussing, the amount accumulated in an average person's life is irrelevant. It's called a 'class' for a reason; mobility is difficult. It's not like "I got a raise, and now I'm significantly ahead." The top 1% is an income of over $350k/year. A lawyer making $150k is just outside of the 5% range.
Well sure, when talking about experience. But not wealth. A millionaire living in my city is objectively wealthy regardless of age. I'm not "wealthy" by any means. Despite that, my income is top 1% for my age-group. However the median income for my peers is also barely above minimum wage, so thats not a terribly helpful metric. Knowing I'm in the top 11% regardless of age is far more helpful in understanding how I fit into my local community.
> They're also on average the wealthiest age demographic in the US.
That's true, but it's a bit misleading IMO. Older folks might have accrued more wealth than younger demographics, but they're not really adding to it each year.
For example, the 65-69 age range has a median net worth of ~$194k[0]. However, somebody in that age range is likely retired and will be living off of that $194k for the remainder of their life. Conversely, somebody under 35 might only have a net worth of $6.6k but will likely be bringing in ~$4,000 each month. Were an individual in the 65-69 age range to withdraw $4,000 per month, they'd be out of money in 4 years. Realistically, most might withdraw around $2,000 per month (before or after Social Security). That's where my parents are at. They really have much less to spend even though they have a lot saved up.
If you take into consideration home equity, it's more apparent why property taxes and such are a big deal to older folks: upwards of 80% of their assets are in their house[1].
Wealth is best measured in terms of age. A wealthy 25 year old with only 3 million in the bank is in a very different situation than a 70 year old with 3 million. The difference is 'earning potential' over their lifetime.
It is mostly older Millenials/Xennials with professional jobs. They earn more than 2x the national median income, but have a net worth that's less than 3x their income or $1M (whichever is larger).
Keep in mind that most people are their wealthiest at retirement age. People near retirement tend to have a lot invested. People under 30 make up 50% of the population - but will not be their wealthiest for another 30 years.
But in 30 years, those same people will also have significant amounts of savings (ideally).
Not at all saying that there are no issues with wealth distribution, or stock-ownership-distribution. But the top 10% aren't necessarily the "elites". They could also just be your parents.
>If you’re over 62, your odds of having at least $1 million in net wealth (your total assets minus your total debt) are relatively achievable -- about 1 in 7. But if you are under 40, your odds are low: 1 in 55.
So the older you are the more time you have had to grow wealth. The younger you are the less time you have had. This is then forcibly tied into median family income?
Wealth is a side effect of age. Most millionaires and billionaires are seniors. Despite being in the top percentile in terms of capital, most millionaires they don’t feel financially secure, regardless of their age. I think that insecurity is understandable.
This entire subthread is missing the premise of the article. It's looking at the percentage of total wealth held by each age interval, and seeing how that percentage changed, which was in favor of the youngest. It's not just saying that older people have more, that's obvious and expected and still true.
I must be missing something in this article. It seems to say that older generations have more net worth than younger generations. Its graph depicting net worth by age scales almost linearly. Isn't this how it's supposed to work?
If I encounter someone who has spent a year digging a hole, another person who has spent two years digging a hole, and another person who has spent ten years digging a hole, I suspect that each respective hole's depth would be roughly proportional to the length of time spent digging it. The same concept applies to years making income. Clearly this isn't ubiquitous, since it's only possible to gain wealth if you make enough money to save wealth, but one could argue using this data that it's actually the norm.
My parents are fiscally conservative "millionaires". They are 70 and 71 and may never need to tap their investments for operating cash (they can live off of pension + social security + misc income). My pet peeve is that I hope they spend a bit of money on themselves before it is too late.
I used to think their "conservative" consumption habits were a generational thing. However, they recently had a college friend who sold their paid off house, bought a very expensive townhouse in DC with their equity plus a giant mortgage (why does a bank give a 30 year mortgage to someone who is 70?), and then proceeded to loose the new house plus all of their equity because they had unexpected medical bills for one of their adult children.
Sure, but the reason for that isn’t that they simply haven’t lived long enough to accure wealth. Younger generational cohorts have less than their parents did at the same age.
> Second, 18 to 35 is sort of a crazy range, it seems to me, since the net worth of the group is likely going to be dominated by those in their 30s who are mid-career.
And yet, it still
> has dropped 34%
If you break it down to two sub-demographics, I suspect there'd be an even larger disparity within e.g. 18-25 than there is with 26-35 for reasons such as student loans, but 18-35 would seem appropriate for what's perhaps an overgeneralized view of when most career trajectories and preferences plateau/harden.
Not sure if it's at all related to the key TV demographic of 18-34, but that wouldn't surprise me either for largely the same reason (hardening of preferences).
But I think that's kinda the point. People were previously building more wealth at a time in their lives when said wealth would have a more profound impact as they approached retirement age some number of decades later. The current generation occupying that demographic has been tragically stunted by stagnation in wage growth + inflation of education charges, and here in the United States, this may well impose a cascading detrimental impact on the health of the economy as a whole.
Are they in their 30s with inherited wealth that allows them to spend like someone with a top 1% incone?
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