SHRINKING LEGACIES

As baby boomers turn 80, longer lives and caregiving costs are absorbing inheritances once expected to pass to the next generation

- BY ALISS HIGHAM

AS AMERICA’S FIRST BABY BOOMERS BEGIN TURNING 80, A GENERation that rode decades of economic good fortune is entering a new, more uncertain chapter—one that will shape not just their own retirements, but the future of wealth, housing and opportunity for everyone who follows.

On January 1, 2026, the leading edge of the baby boom generation reached the symbolic and practical threshold of becoming octogenarians. Born between 1946 and 1964, boomers sit at the intersection of longevity and rising financial risk. They are living longer than any previous generation, often with more assets than their parents ever imagined—but also with costs and responsibilities that few fully anticipated.

Boomers are aging while holding an extraordinary share of the country's money and property. As of early 2025, this generation of Americans controlled more than half of all U.S. household wealth, with a combined net worth of about $82 trillion. That figure dwarfs the roughly $42 trillion held by their counterparts in Gen X and around $16 trillion belonging to millennials.

Those numbers alone suggest a dramatic story, but they only hint at how that wealth was built—and how it may be spent, transferred or lost in the years ahead.

Wealthiest Americans Ever

The financial dominance of boomers did not happen by accident. Rather, it was the result of a rare convergence of economic conditions that has worked by and large in their favor for much of their adult lives.

Steven Rogé, chief investment officer and CEO of R.W. Rogé & Company, a Long Island-based financial planning firm, told Newsweek that boomers “became the wealthiest cohort in U.S. history because they caught several tailwinds at once and kept them for decades.” Those tailwinds included a broad expansion in postwar wages, strong unions and a labor market in which workers captured a larger share of national income than they do today.