Description
Prompt: The readings for modules 5 and 6 discuss current political events that have a significant impact on education; both directly and indirectly. For this essay discuss why schools and schooling are a perennial political flashpoint and pay specific attention to the ways that economic, racial, and geographic diversity impact the perception of politics as related to schools. Part A (Due Monday)A student will submit written reflections on course readings over the course of the semester. These assignments are due at the start of class. The reflection on course reading must be at least three pages (i.e. 900-words), typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, and written in paragraph form (e.g., not as bullet points). All written assignments are expected to be presented in proper written format adhering to the APA style (you do not need to include an abstract). They are due at the beginning of class on the day in which they are assigned and the specific chapter(s) assigned for each reflection is explicated in the course schedule.
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5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
https://nyti.ms/3M2qcHf
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage
Workers. Now College Graduates Are
Leaving, Too.
By Emily Badger, Robert Gebeloff and Josh Katz
May 13, 2023
The college graduates who fill white-collar jobs in the San Francisco area
began to leave in growing numbers about a decade ago. More and more
have moved to other parts of the country — an accelerating outflow of
educated workers that, in a poorer part of America, might be thought of as
brain drain.
When the pandemic arrived, these departures surged so sharply that the
San Francisco area has lately lost more educated workers than have
moved in:
Metro San Francisco
Net college-educated migration, age 21-64
+10k
-10k
The San Francisco metro
area lost 25,000 college
graduates in 2021.
-20k
2010
2015
2020
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
1/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
Over this same time, a similar pattern has been taking shape on the other
side of the country:
Metro Washington, D.C.
Net college-educated migration, age 21-64
+20k
+10k
-10k
2010
2015
2020
And in the New York area, long a net exporter of graduates, swelling
losses have reinforced the trend: Educated workers, dating to even before
the pandemic, have been migrating away from the most prosperous parts
of the country.
Metro New York
Net college-educated migration, age 21-64
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
2/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
-10k
-20k
-30k
-40k
-50k
-60k
-70k
-80k
-90k
-100k
2010
2015
2020
Source: Upshot analysis of one-year American Community Survey microdata from ipums.org.
This pattern, visible in an Upshot analysis of census microdata, is startling
in retrospect. Major coastal metros have been hubs of the kind of educated
workers coveted most by high-powered employers and economic
development officials. Economists have lamented the growing coastal
concentration of their wealth. A politics of resentment in America has fed
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
3/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
on it, too. These urban centers have become a class of their own —
“superstar cities” — with outsize impact on the American economy fueled
by the clustering of workers with degrees.
But it appears in domestic migration data that, years after lower-wage
residents have been priced out of expensive coastal metros, higher-paid
workers are now turning away from them, too.
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Working-age Americans with a degree are still flowing into these regions
from other parts of the country, often in large numbers. But as the pool
leaving grows faster, that educational advantage is eroding. Boston’s pull
with college graduates has weakened. Seattle’s edge vanished during the
pandemic. And the analysis shows San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles
and Washington all crossing a significant threshold: More collegeeducated workers left than moved in.
For most of this century, large metros with a million residents or more
have received all of the net gains from college-educated workers migrating
around the country, at the expense of smaller places. But among those
large urban areas, the dozen metros with the highest living costs — nearly
all of them coastal — have had a uniquely bifurcated migration pattern: As
they saw net gains from college graduates, they lost large numbers of
workers without degrees.
At least, that was true until recently. Now, large, expensive metros are
shedding both kinds of workers.
Net Domestic Migration of Working-Age College Graduates
In the 12 most expensive large metro areas
Includes cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
4/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
+50k
-50k
-100k
-150k
-200k
2010
2015
2020
In other large metros
The remaining 41 metros with more than one million residents. Includes cities like Phoenix, Austin and
Raleigh, N.C.
+150k
+100k
+50k
2010
2015
2020
In midsized metros
Metros with 250,000 to one million residents. Includes cities like Tucson, Ariz.; Tulsa, Okla.; and
Fresno, Calif.
+50k
-50k
2010
2015
2020
In smaller metros and rural America
Metros with fewer than 250,000 residents and areas outside of metros. Includes cities like Sioux Falls,
S.D.; Yakima, Wash.; and College Station, Texas.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
5/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
-50k
-100k
2010
2015
2020
Figures show domestic migration for Americans ages 21 to 64 who moved between metros. The 12 most
expensive large metros, chosen according to a government index of real personal consumption expenditures,
are the metro areas of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San
Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
Source: Upshot analysis of one-year American Community Survey microdata from ipums.org. Cost-of-living
estimates are based on Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities.
The college-educated workers who’ve turned away from them are
increasingly migrating toward major metros that are still prosperous but
not quite so expensive — places like Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston and Tampa.
During the pandemic, smaller cities such as Portland, Maine, and
Wilmington, N.C., also saw growing inflows of such workers.
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The overall migration rate in America today is historically low, and
mobility has fallen since the 1980s for all kinds of demographic groups. But
these college-educated workers have recently bucked that trend. In the
years leading up to the pandemic, their mobility rate was actually rising, a
pattern true for both local moves and the kind of longer-distance moves
between metro areas that are analyzed here. That has opened a potentially
new divide in the American economy between increasingly mobile whitecollar workers and blue-collar workers who are increasingly likely to stay
put.
An Emerging Divide
Mobility has risen for college-educated workers, even as it has fallen for workers without
a degree.
Share of working-age Americans who moved in the previous year
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6/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
With a college degree
15%
14%
13%
Without a college degree
12%
2010
2015
2020
Figures are among Americans ages 21 to 64 who said they had moved in the prior 12 months.
Source: Upshot analysis of one-year American Community Survey microdata from ipums.org.
For every move that anecdotally points to these trends — and the
pandemic produced many such anecdotes — it’s trickier to capture these
patterns nationwide. The census doesn’t publicly track moves between
metro areas by demographic cohorts. So to identify these patterns, The
Upshot examined an anonymized sample of millions of census records and
identified people who moved, grouped them by education level and age,
and then linked each mover’s origin and destination with larger counties
and metro areas.
The fact that big coastal metros have been losing workers without a
degree is not that surprising — living costs have surged in these places as
the good big-city jobs once available to less educated workers in factories
and clerical pools have dwindled. But for workers with a degree,
economists have concluded that the higher pay promised in places like the
Bay Area and New York should still mean it’s a good deal to live there.
That makes it all the more curious that these workers have been leaving
anyway.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
7/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
“Migration patterns for lower-education workers make complete sense,”
said Daniel Shoag, an economist at Case Western Reserve University who
has found similar trends in work with co-authors Stan Veuger and Philip
Hoxie.
“For college-educated workers,” he said, “it’s more of a puzzle.”
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Affordability issues move up income ladder
For these higher-education workers, it’s not so easy to separate those who
can’t afford a city from those who can but leave anyway. Affordability is
relative and personal; for one person it means making rent, for another it
means making enough to also join a gym, buy concert tickets and dine out
regularly. And even a professional who can afford all of that in New York
may still eventually sour on the sixth-floor walk-up and the laundromat
that comes with it.
It is clear, though, that affordability has broadly been eroding up the
income spectrum in the country’s most expensive metros. As these regions
have become richer, that has, among other things, helped fuel the rise in
their housing prices.
“And it ends up pricing out more and more people — not just people in the
middle, but even people with higher incomes and college degrees,” said
Jed Kolko, the under secretary for economic affairs at the U.S. Department
of Commerce (and a former Upshot contributor).
Look Up Your Metro Area
Enter a U.S. city, town or postal code
Since 2020, the workers moving in and out of the Atlanta area have been roughly evenly
divided between those with and without a college degree. The region is now gaining
workers with a college degree and gaining those without a degree.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
8/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
Domestic migration to and from metro Atlanta
With a college degree
Leaving
Arriving
No college degree
80k
70k
Net inflow
60k
Net inflow
50k
2010
2015
2020
2010
2015
2020
Figures show domestic migration for Americans ages 21 to 64, using two-year rolling averages for large
metros of one million population or more and five-year rolling averages for all smaller places.
Source: Upshot analysis of one-year American Community Survey microdata from ipums.org.
If the Bay Area, for one, ceased to be a land of opportunity more than a
generation ago for bus drivers and home health aids, today it may be
losing that appeal for engineers and consultants.
The sudden pandemic-era rise of remote work has also accelerated that
shift. Remote work has driven demand for more space by white-collar
workers in precisely the places where more space is hardest to come by.
And remote work has altered the bargain that educated workers must
swallow high living costs to access the highest wages.
“Now, highly educated and more high-income workers have an option that
they’ve never had before,” said Hans Johnson, a demographer with the
Public Policy Institute of California. At least some of those workers can
now keep (or accept) San Francisco jobs, while paying Houston or
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
9/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
Charlotte living costs. Mr. Johnson suspects that helps explain why the
whole state of California has now become a net domestic loser of college
graduates.
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“California is so beautiful, but it is a hard place to live,” said Rebecca
McGrail, 62, a school principal who moved with her husband, a consultant,
and daughter from the San Francisco metro to Durham, N.C., in 2019. That
sentiment encompasses wildfires, earthquake fears and traffic, she said,
but above all the steep cost of everything from housing to a pizza dinner.
Expensive big metros have struggled the most to retain educated workers
aged 40 to 64, who face the greatest exposure to steep mortgages, child
care costs and big grocery bills. (Younger educated workers were at first a
bulwark against that trend, but have increasingly migrated away from
these regions, too.)
Jim Dalrymple II left Los Angeles when he reached that costly life stage —
when the smallest, cheapest house he said he and his wife could find in the
city was no longer big enough to fit children.
“I love L.A., I thought we would stay there indefinitely — I miss it still,”
said Mr. Dalrymple, a 41-year-old writer. When he and his wife concluded
they couldn’t afford to stay, they moved in 2019 to a much larger home
within walking distance of downtown Salt Lake City. He recalled the
abundant jobs and affordable housing that attracted his schoolteacher
grandparents to Southern California two generations before he left.
“I would love to take advantage of all that myself,” he said. “It’s not
available to us. And it’s not available to a lot of people.”
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10/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
Jim Dalrymple II and his wife felt their family could no longer afford to stay in Los Angeles.
They could afford, however, “the most urban neighborhood in Salt Lake” — and a big house in
walking distance of downtown. Kim Raff for The New York Times
Garrett Lyon, a 40-year-old brand strategist, described having a similar
realization in Seattle when he and his wife considered buying a home:
“Seattle was crazy, absolutely, absolutely insanely expensive,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
11/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
They could have afforded a home an hour outside the city, he said. Instead,
they moved to Nashville.
Other college-educated workers who’ve moved away from the coasts
described in interviews quality-of-life considerations that go beyond any
simple accounting of wages versus living costs. They mention wanting
furniture that would never fit in a New York elevator, or having a home
office with a door that actually closes. They talk about not just cheaper
housing, but washing machines, walk-in closets and walls to hang artwork.
Some describe frustration that even people who’ve followed typical routes
to success — get a degree, save up money, work your way up to betterpaying jobs — still struggle to live comfortably in coastal metros.
“The threshold is just so high,” Eduardo Lerro, 45, said of the income
required to get by in New York. He was a public-school teacher in the city,
then recently became a higher-paid consultant who could live elsewhere.
In 2021, he moved home to the Minneapolis area.
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Metro New York has long lost more college graduates than it gains
through domestic migration (a steady influx of immigrants has historically
helped make up for that population loss). But while New York continues to
attract more than 100,000 inbound working-age graduates annually, the
number departing has grown steadily and topped more than 200,000 in the
most recent year of census data — which encompasses Mr. Lerro’s move.
“My living room is bigger than any apartment in New York I ever had,” he
said. And that was true even with a Ph.D. and a good job.
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12/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
Other advantages to leaving high-cost New York: windows and walls. “Now my walls are full of
all this art I collected that I never had wall space for,” said Eduardo Lerro, who moved to the
Minneapolis area. Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
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13/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
‘Incredible concentration of wealth’
Prosperous cities have long grappled with the imbalance created by an
exodus of lower-wage workers. Their departures stress businesses
needing to hire lower-wage staff, and they fray working-class
neighborhoods that have lost residents. The high cost of living in big
coastal metros also means that many lower-income households are
blocked from moving into places with plentiful jobs and a stronger safety
net. It’s bad for these regions, too, when essential workers like firefighters
or child care providers can’t afford to live there.
The migration of college-educated residents away from these same places,
on the other hand, raises a more muddled set of questions. Domestic
migration is zero-sum, meaning a loss of college graduates prized by local
officials and tax collectors in Washington or San Francisco can be a gain
for Kansas City or Orlando. And researchers who study inequality say it
would be a good thing if college graduates (and their spending power)
were less clustered on the coasts.
“There’s an incredible concentration of wealth in these superstar cities
that is unhealthy,” said David Autor, an economist at M.I.T. whose work
has traced the disappearance over time of good big-city jobs for less
educated workers. “It also means a lot of the affluence that goes with that
is very concentrated among a small set of people.”
While it may be good for the country for that affluence to spread out more,
some of the forces that appear to be driving this shift — like a coastal
housing shortage, and political paralysis around solving it — are hardly
positive.
“It’s a side benefit of a very messy, costly thing,” said Adam Ozimek, the
chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank focused
on the widening inequality in America between prosperous and struggling
places.
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14/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
College-educated workers leaving the most expensive parts of the country
are also not spreading out equally everywhere — or even going to parts of
the country that are struggling. Most are going to what could be
considered the next price tier of big metros. And since the pandemic, more
are going to smaller metro areas and even rural parts of the country.
Net migration among
college graduates
Loss
Among the 12 most expensive metros, net
college migration has generally declined or
turned negative.
Gain
The other 41 large metros have mostly
continued to attract working-age college
graduates.
2010-14 2015-19 2020-21
2010-14 2015-19 2020-21
Baltimore
-0.3 k
-3 k
+4 k
Atlanta
+4 k
+12 k
+8 k
Boston
+12 k
+16 k
+11 k
Austin
+9 k
+7 k
+21 k
Chicago
+1 k
-11 k
-19 k
Birmingham
+1 k
+0.1 k
+0.4 k
Honolulu
+1 k
+0.2 k
-2 k
Buffalo
-2 k
-2 k
-1 k
Los Angeles
+0.1 k
-4 k
-37 k
Charlotte
+9 k
+13 k
+9 k
Miami
+5 k
-5 k
+0.2 k
Cincinnati
-1 k
-1 k
+1 k
New York City
-18 k
-39 k
-103 k
Cleveland
-1 k
+1 k
+1 k
San Diego
+1 k
-0.5 k
+4 k
Columbus
No chg.
+0.4 k
-4 k
San Francisco
+13 k
+8 k
-25 k
Dallas
+16 k
+26 k
+15 k
San Jose
+2 k
+2 k
-23 k
Denver
+13 k
+19 k
+17 k
Seattle
+15 k
+16 k
+1 k
Detroit
-3 k
+2 k
-5 k
Washington
+14 k
+2 k
-15 k
Grand Rapids
+1 k
-1 k
-1 k
Hartford
-1 k
-2 k
-4 k
Houston
+18 k
+13 k
+19 k
Indianapolis
+2 k
+2 k
+2 k
Jacksonville
+4 k
+7 k
+11 k
Kansas City
+4 k
+2 k
+7 k
Las Vegas
+2 k
+5 k
+13 k
Louisville
+1 k
-0.4 k
-0.2 k
Memphis
-0.4 k
-1 k
-0.2 k
Milwaukee
-1 k
-3 k
-0.4 k
Minn./St.Paul
+5 k
+7 k
-1 k
Nashville
+6 k
+9 k
+16 k
New Orleans
+3 k
-2 k
-1 k
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
15/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
2010-14 2015-19 2020-21
Oklahoma City
+3 k
-3 k
+2 k
Orlando
-1 k
+4 k
+1 k
Philadelphia
-5 k
-3 k
-0.1 k
Phoenix
+10 k
+16 k
+23 k
Pittsburgh
+0.1 k
-4 k
-0.4 k
Portland
+8 k
+10 k
+8 k
Providence
-10 k
-12 k
-13 k
Raleigh
+5 k
+9 k
+6 k
Richmond
+1 k
+3 k
+6 k
Riverside
+0.4 k
+3 k
+8 k
Rochester
-3 k
-1 k
-3 k
Sacramento
+0.1 k
+5 k
+6 k
Salt Lake City
-0.1 k
+4 k
-3 k
San Antonio
+4 k
+4 k
+2 k
St. Louis
+1 k
-1 k
+2 k
Tampa
+5 k
+9 k
+17 k
Virginia Beach
No chg.
-3 k
+3 k
Figures show average annual domestic migration for Americans ages 21 to 64 who moved between metros.
The 12 most expensive large metros were chosen according to a government index of real personal
consumption expenditures.
Source: Upshot analysis of one-year American Community Survey microdata from ipums.org.
These migration patterns may also reflect the fact that many cities outside
coastal America have themselves changed over the last 20 years. More of
them have developed the amenities associated first with big coastal cities:
revitalized downtowns, brewpubs, loft apartment conversions, diverse
restaurant scenes.
“Some of it is that the most expensive places got really expensive,”
Rebecca Diamond, a Stanford economist, said of shifting migration
patterns. “But also, the middle-tier places became more attractive.”
Since 2000, she has found, college graduates have increasingly been
moving toward high-amenity cities and away from the highest-wage ones.
“Consumer cities,” as she puts it, are increasingly replacing “producer
cities” as the places where college graduates want to live.
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16/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
In interviews, several movers described not just the appeal in their new
homes of more space and a lower cost of living, but also the sense that
they hadn’t given up too much to gain those benefits. To a growing degree,
they said, what they left behind they can find in Charlotte, Denver,
Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas or Louisville.
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Those places today may promise something like 90 percent of the city life
of a big coastal metro at 60 or 70 percent of the cost. And that trade-off is
particularly alluring for some workers choosing between a central
neighborhood in a more affordable city or a far-flung home in the coastal
exurbs.
“There’s never been a time since I moved here where I was like, ‘Dang, I
wish I could do something I used to be able to do back in D.C.,’” said
Jonathan Ruckman, 42, who moved to Louisville from Washington in 2013.
On the other hand, he can do in Louisville things he believes he couldn’t
afford to in D.C., including buying a home as a public-interest lawyer.
Decisions like his are noteworthy not because a lawyer, a consultant or a
brand strategist who moves across the country counts for more than a
waitress who does, but because their decisions say something broader
about the places they’ve left behind and the options available to others
there.
“This is about choice, and who has choices,” said Abigail Wozniak, who
directs the Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute at the Minneapolis
Fed. That means, she said, that we have to understand what goes into the
choices visible in this data to recognize what choices are closed to other
people — like the teacher who might like to move to California but can’t
afford to and never does, or the nursing assistant who won’t make it in
New York because even an entrepreneur can’t.
“I had these dreams about opening a business,” said Laura Newman, 33,
who wanted to own her own bar in her native New York City. “I really
wanted to pursue those dreams. And it didn’t matter how much money I
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17/18
5/15/23, 10:46 AM
Coastal Cities Priced Out Low-Wage Workers. Now College Graduates Are Leaving, Too. – The New York Times
saved, because the cost of achieving those goals increased as I was saving
money.”
And so she moved to Birmingham, Ala., in 2017 and opened her first bar
there instead.
Methodology
To identify these patterns, The Upshot looked at an anonymized sample of individual responses to the annual
American Community Survey, which asks people detailed demographic questions, as well as whether they have
moved in the previous year. We took the smaller geographies associated with each mover’s origin and
destination, and allocated those moves to larger counties and current metropolitan areas (or rural parts of
states). We removed from the analysis people living in group quarters, active members of the military and
movers from abroad. We restricted the core working-age demographic to people 21 to 64 years old.
Metro areas were then ranked by a cost-of-living index created by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that
encompasses housing, food, transportation and other burdens on consumers.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners – The New York Times
The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners
In an era of surging home and stock values, U.S. family wealth has soared. The trillions of dollars going to heirs will largely reinforce
inequality.
Annual wealth projected to be
inherited by each generation
$2.5 trillion
2.0
Generation X
Millennials
1.5
Members of
Generation X near
retirement and
gradually inherit
less from older
generations.
1.0
0.5
0
2025
’30
’35
’40
’45
2025
’30
’35
’40
’45
’40
’45
$1.0 trillion
Generation Z
and younger
0.5
Baby Boomers
0
2025
’30
’35
’40
’45
2025
’30
’35
Source: Cerulli Associates
By Talmon Joseph Smith Graphics by Karl Russell
May 14, 2023
An intergenerational transfer of wealth is in motion in America — and it will dwarf any of the past.
Of the 73 million baby boomers, the youngest are turning 60. The oldest boomers are nearing 80. Born in midcentury as U.S. birthrates
surged in tandem with an enormous leap in prosperity after the Depression and World War II, boomers are now beginning to die in larger
numbers, along with Americans over 80.
Most will leave behind thousands of dollars, a home or not much at all. Others are leaving their heirs hundreds of thousands, or millions, or
billions of dollars in various assets.
In 1989, total family wealth in the United States was about $38 trillion, adjusted for inflation. By 2022, that wealth had more than tripled,
reaching $140 trillion. Of the $84 trillion projected to be passed down from older Americans to millennial and Gen X heirs through 2045, $16
trillion will be transferred within the next decade.
Baby Boomers Hold Half of the Nation’s $140 Trillion in Wealth
B a b y Boomers
Born 1946-64
$78.3 trillion
in assets
G e n e ration X
Born 1965-80
$47.8 trillion
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5/15/23, 10:46 AM
The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners – The New York Times
Pensions $9.4 tril.
Equities $19.1 tril.
Equities $8.8 tril.
Real estate $18.9 tril.
Real estate $14.4 tril.
Private businesses $6.8 tril.
Sile n t Generation
M i l l e n nials
Born before 1946
$18.1 trillion
Other assets $13.9 tril.
Pensions $16.1 tril.
Private businesses $7.4 tril.
Born after 1980
$14.2 trillion
Other assets $4.1 tril.
Equities $5.3 tril.
Real estate $5.5 tril.
Private
businesses
Pensions
$1.4 tril.
$2.0 tril.
Other assets
Durable assets $0.7 tril. $2.2 tril.
Durable
assets $3.0 tril. Real estate $4.7 tril.
Durable
assets
$2.4 tril.
Other assets $5.9 tril.
Pensions
$2.5 tril.
Durable
assets
$1.6 tril.
Private
businesses Equities
$1.6 tril.
$0.8 tril.
Notes: As of the fourth quarter of 2022. The total amount accounts for liabilities, but the individual asset categories do not account for liabilities and do not add up to the $140 trillion total. The
total assets when not accounting for liabilities is $158 trillion. Pensions include the present value of future benefits as well as the value of annuities sold by life insurance companies. • Source:
Federal Reserve
Heirs increasingly don’t need to wait for the passing of elders to directly benefit from family money, a result of the bursting popularity of
“giving while living” — including property purchases, repeated tax-free cash transfers of estate money, and more — providing millions a
head start.
It’s no longer “an oncoming phenomenon,” said Douglas Boneparth, a 38-year-old financial adviser whose New York firm caters to affluent
millennials. “It’s present-day.”
And it’s already impacting the broader economy, greasing the wheels of social mobility for some and leaving obstacles for those left out as
the cost of living, housing and raising families surge.
The wealthiest 10 percent of households will be giving and receiving a majority of the riches. Within that range, the top 1 percent — which
holds about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and is predominantly white — will dictate the broadest share of the money flow. The
more diverse bottom 50 percent of households will account for only 8 percent of the transfers.
The Top 10 Percent of Households Hold a Majority of the Wealth
$150 trillion
Total wealth by percentile
125
100
75
Top 10
percent
Top 1%
50
90th to 99th
25
50th to 90th
1990
Bottom
half
Bottom 50th
0
’95
2000
’05
’10
’15
’20
Notes: As of the fourth quarter of 2022. Wealth accounts for assets and liabilities. Adjusted for
inflation. • Source: Federal Reserve
A key reason there are such large soon-to-be-inherited sums is the uneven way boomers superbly benefited from price growth in the
financial and housing markets.
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The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners – The New York Times
The average price of a U.S. house has risen about 500 percent since 1983, when most baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s, prime years
for household formation. As U.S. corporations have grown into global behemoths, those deeply invested in the stock market have found
even bigger returns: The stock market, as measured by the benchmark S&P 500 index, is up by more than 2,800 percent since the
beginning of 1983, around the time index funds took off as a mainstream investment for corporate employees and many other middle-class
professionals. (Those figures do not include dividends and are not adjusted for inflation, which they have far outstripped; consumer prices
have risen about 200 percent over those 40 years.)
The boomers who benefited most from decades of price growth in real estate and financial assets were, in general, already rich, white or
both — attributable, in part, to years of housing discrimination and a lack of access to financial tools and advice for people of color.
But the wealth transfer in its full scope, like any widespread financial phenomenon, will have many nuances: A patchwork of lowe
