To paraphrase the late jazzman Mose Allison, young Americans ain’t got nothing in the world these days.
Americans ages 45 and under control only 11% of the nation’s wealth, according to household data from the Federal Reserve.
In other words, nine-tenths of America’s assets belong to the older half of America. People ages 45 and over make up about 42% of the nation’s population, and about 54% of the adults.
Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, hold 51% of American wealth: a mountain of real estate, stocks, pension benefits, private businesses and other assets, collectively valued at $90 trillion in late 2025.
Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, owns 26% of the wealth, worth $46 trillion.
A dwindling group of Americans over age 80 holds 12% of American wealth, worth $21 trillion.
The remaining American wealth, valued at about $19 trillion, belongs to everyone else: millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and the oldest members of Generation Z, born in 1997 or later.
Older Americans are as wealthy as they’ve ever been, and they’re getting wealthier. The average 50-something is worth $1.4 million, according to estimates from Empower. The average 60-something is worth $1.6 million.
By contrast, the average 20-something is worth $139,243, and the average 30-something holds $325,952.
The pattern seems obvious: Age begets wealth.
Boomers, the wealthiest generation, control $31 trillion in stocks and mutual fund shares, according to the Fed. They own $19 trillion in real estate. The collective values of those assets have ballooned over time, thanks to a surging stock market, rising home values and a steady accumulation of home equity.
To some extent, the concentration of wealth among the old is about the simple passage of time.
“Building wealth is like a snowball rolling down a hill,” said Richard Fry, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. “It takes time to become a bigger snowball.”
If you save for retirement continuously over your career, investing in stocks and bonds, the value of your account is likely to expand geometrically.
For Americans over 65, the average Vanguard retirement account balance was $299,442 in 2024, the company reports. For savers ages 25 to 34, the average balance was only $42,640.
If you buy a home and take out a 30-year mortgage, your home equity will rise steadily over time, both from your payments and from the rising value of the property.
“These are things that are going to accumulate over the course of the life cycle,” said John Sabelhaus, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
But the economics of wealth are changing, in ways that could make it harder for younger Americans to build it.
The typical first-time home buyer is now 40, a record high, according to the National Association of Realtors. The median age of all home buyers is 59.
“If you live in a wealthy part of the country, which is pretty much everywhere now, and even if you have substantial assets, even a very high income isn’t enough to buy a house,” said Dinon Hughes, a 25-year-old certified financial planner in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
American workers are expected to build retirement savings over their careers, a model designed to concentrate wealth among the old. Prior generations relied more on workplace pensions.
Retirees are living longer, which means their heirs must wait longer to inherit wealth. Americans are most likely to inherit ages 56 to 65, according to a 2021 analysis from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“I’ve got a bunch of clients whose parents are passing away, but most of them are in their 60s,” said Laurie Allen, 43, a certified financial planner in Hermosa Beach, California.
It’s tricky to compare different generations over time. Yet, boomers clearly controlled more of America’s wealth in their (relative) youth than millennials and Zoomers do today.
In 1991, the year the oldest boomers turned 45, the younger half of America held about 23% of all wealth, according to Fry at Brookings.
(The tricky part: Boomers made up a larger share of the population in 1991 than millennials do now.)
The good news, for millennials and Generation Z, is that many encouraging signs suggest they will amass plenty of wealth in the years to come.
Millennials “are going to inherit more than the boomers did from their parents,” said Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow in economics at the Pacific Research Institute. But they may not see that money for another 20 or 30 years.
Several recent reports suggest that millennials are building wealth faster than older generations, and that they hold more wealth now than older generations controlled at the same age.
Gen Z and millennials generally started saving for retirement earlier than Gen Xers or boomers, and they are avid savers.
The total 401(k) savings rate for Gen Z workers is 11.3%, not far behind the savings rates for millennials (13.5%) and Generation X (15.4%), Fidelity reports. The savings rate for young adults is significant, because Gen Z is decades away from retirement.
“We all understand that we have to put away for our own retirements, and everyone’s taking advantage of whatever benefits they get,” said Hughes, the Gen Z financial planner.
Between retirement savings, eventual home ownership and inheritance, millennials and Zoomers will eventually amass enormous wealth, researchers say. But it will take time.
“They’re young. They haven’t had much time to accumulate yet,” said Fry of Pew. “It’s the magic of compounding. And compounding is magic, but it takes decades to work its magic.”