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Economic Commentary

The Baby Boomers’ Mega-Inheritance—Myth or Reality?

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Retirees are one of the wealthiest segments of the U.S. population, and today’s retirees have more wealth than any previous generation’s. Some have conjectured that bequests out of this wealth will significantly boost the resources of the baby boomers—the next generation of retirees—bridging the gap between their retirement needs and resources. This Economic Commentary argues against such a view and explains why boomers have no alternative but to save for their own retirement.

10.01.2000ISSN 2163-3738 EC 10/1/2000

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Gokhale, Jagadeesh, and Laurence Kotlikoff. 2000. “The Baby Boomers’ Mega-Inheritance—Myth or Reality?” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 10/1/2000.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International