Everyone's getting richer in the US, but boomers most of all. Why it's not sitting well with young Americans

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America is getting richer. Household wealth, astatine astir $170 trillion according to the latest Federal Reserve data, is hovering astir all-time highs arsenic banal portfolios swell.

Home values are climbing, and status accounts person fattened up. But, the large winners successful this question of prosperity aren’t those conscionable entering the workforce – it’s the boomers.

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Born betwixt 1946 and 1964, babe boomers clasp the lion’s stock of U.S. wealth, and they’re pulling adjacent further ahead, according to a survey by New York University economist Edward Wolff (1). Their houses are mostly paid off. Their 401(k)s ballooned during a historical bull market. Many are already drafting Social Security and Medicare benefits. The result? They’re cashing successful connected decades of compounding gains.

Younger Americans, meanwhile, are staring down ballooning pupil debt, precocious rents and rising nutrient costs — nutrient wide ran astir 3.1% much costly successful July 2025 vs. the erstwhile year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture — that devour done paychecks earlier they tin adjacent deliberation astir saving.

Wolff’s probe shows young people’s nett worthy has technically improved, and their property gives them clip to payment from compounding, but the spread with boomers whitethorn inactive consciousness little similar a ravine and much similar a chasm.

Wolff’s probe and conclusions halfway connected 3 superior factors: stocks, homeownership and debt.

Boomers owned the close assets astatine the close time, particularly stocks. By 2022, their stockpile (from sources similar 401(k)s, IRAs and communal funds) had skyrocketed versus the wide American average, arsenic they’ve captured decades of marketplace gains that younger households mostly missed retired connected portion they were conscionable getting started.

Second, among the oldest Americans, homeownership roseate sharply implicit the survey model (1983 to 2022) and remained high. Translation: Boomers not lone owned homes much often, they besides owned much of those homes. Rising spot values past accrued to them, alternatively than to renters oregon would-be buyers.