I was doing my genealogy and found out my great-grandparents lived in like the richest area of Pennsylvania. Checked census data and they were a maid and a chauffeur.

Because securing generational wealth isn’t as simple as “locking in,” and neither is maintaining it.

Firstly, there’s a threshold of income that you have to reach before you even become capable of purchasing an appreciating asset without enough debt to make your financial situation too precarious. In the US the average threshold is around 90k per year (though this varies a lot by region). Below that threshold people have to invest nearly all their income into simply making ends meet, with anything left going to a rainy day fund that gets periodically wiped out by unexpected expenses (if they can even manage that, otherwise the unexpected expenses force them to fall back on others or take a hit that pushes them further down the income ladder). There is no self-directed opportunity for advancement at this level without taking on debt (and therefore a great deal of risk), or you need a lucky break.

Finally, let’s say you do get your lucky break and manage to buy a nice house, or some land, or start a successful business. Now the problem is making sure your wealth not only holds its value, but grows in value at a rate that exceeds inflation, keeps pace with a changing economy, and multiplies by however many inheritors you intend to pass it down to. This introduces another threshold below which the wealth will dwindle and disappear after only a few generations (the value of a lone house can collapse in just one). I don’t know exactly what this threshold is right now in the US, but I know that above it it’s virtually impossible to lose wealth because it grows rapidly on its own without intervention (this is because owning private property enables you to extract the value of others’ labor, creating the previously mentioned problems. yay capitalism!).

I really do not understand it. My parents are the oldest Boomers. They should be wealthy beyond reason, right?

I could have sworn I’ve seen a study that said generational wealth dissolves like 99% of the time sometime during or after the third generation, that is it’s exceptionally difficult to maintain wealth for generations upon generations.

They’ve been trained to burn it all by the time they die. That’s retirement planning.

Per his journal my great great grandad was poker buddies with the Oreida potato trio, and according to said journal he opted not to try their newfangled method of potatoing so we’re all a little angry with him. i could have been a spud princess

family legend, so who knows how much truth and how much horsepucky, but there’s a bit of each in there

I have an ancestor with a wikipedia page. Somebody fucked up along the way…

The fun thin abt being black is that someone else has generational wealth because your ancestors actually did lock in

Assuming you are a black American, there’s a pretty good reason

My great grandmother’s side of the family is immensely wealthy from starting a company that’s a household name across the world today, but my little branch of the family is quite poor because she was disowned by them when she married my great grandfather (who I grew up with and who was a very kind, thoughtful, and loving man) because he didn’t come from money and was the “wrong” kind of white. I’m very grateful she had the courage to leave that kind of wealth behind and separate herself from her racist, classist family.

I mean, right on? Why is it my burden to do so if none of my recent ancestors obviously bothered to?

Double it and give it to the next person

Be pretty hit or miss for most people thanks to the Shirtsleeves Proverb. Even if someone did make some money the next generation would likely piss it away. It’s really hard to hang on to wealth.

This is the longest period without war in europe since a long time, spanning what? 2 generations of peace time? Wars are great resets to wealth. Its also easier than ever to invest above inflation rates. Just a few years ago consumer banks wouldnt even give you a meeting under a couple of hundred thousand wealth. Also they’d try and give you bad contracts which eat up said savings “aaand its gone”. Now you have ETFs and direct access to markets via phone. We are actually the first generation to do so.

Also keep in mind, in the eve of AI revolution times are mad insecure. Complementing your income with interest will be the only way to keep afloat eventually.

Generational wealth? Get a job it’ll keep you human.