As younger generations struggle to buy their first homes, boomers are accumulating wealth and tightening their grip on assets that millennials and Gen Z need to get richer.
Thanks to a perfect storm of economic luck, such as affordable home prices and steady wages, boomers have accumulated a collective net worth of $82 trillion— more than double that of Gen X ($42 trillion) and four times that of millennials ($16 trillion), according to data from Investopedia.
The older generation’s tight grip on their Wall Street investments is also a major contributor. As of early 2025, boomers held about 54% of stocks, worth over $25 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data analyzed by The Motley Fool. In comparison, millennials own 8.2% of stocks, worth $3.9 trillion.
And over time, the generational wealth gap has only widened. Between 1983 and 2022, Americans 75 and older saw a sharp rise in their relative household wealth—and people aged 65 and up had more than twice the average wealth and a homeownership rate (nearly 17 percentage points higher) than those under 65, according to new research released last month from New York University. The report’s author, economics professor Edward Wolff, called the rise in older generation wealth a “seismic shift.”
“The original title was ‘The Disappearing Wealth of Young American Households.’ However, on further inspection, it appears that the real story is the remarkable upswing in the net worth of older American households,” Wolff wrote.
While those under 35 own homes at about the same rate as in 1983, that rate hasn’t kept up with older generations, who now own homes at even higher rates, Wolff found.
Both groups have more money in stocks, but boomers saw much bigger gains, which helped grow their wealth. And while both age groups took on more mortgage debt, it grew much faster for young people compared to their overall wealth.
Boomers holding onto property are preventing millennials from climbing up the ladder
As millennials try to search for their first forever home, generational tension is deepening. Soaring home prices and limited supply on the market are locking younger buyers out. What’s more distressing for young folks is that boomers are choosing to hold onto their homes to pass on to their kids, or age in place, reaping the benefits from increased home values.
Boomers whose children have already moved out are sitting in nearly 3 in 10 large homes in the U.S.—that’s twice as many large homes as millennials with kids, who own about 14.2% of the country’s homes, according to 2024 data from Redfin. Gen Z owns just a sliver (0.3%) of them.
Last year, existing home sales fell to their lowest level in almost three decades, with limited Americans buying or selling on the market. While boomers continued to stay in place, the combination of limited buying and selling could make younger buyers more difficult to get in—and eventually grow their wealth.
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