Most did not "become" wealthy.........most inherited their wealth.
I don't know that percentage of wealth people inherited vs. earned themselves.
Here you go:
"WHERE THERE'S A WILL
But the money won't be distributed equally among Boomers. In fact, the bulk of the wealth will go to relatively few people. Just 8 percent of all Americans have ever received an inheritance, according to a 1998 study of the Survey of Consumer Finances. (At press time, results of the 2001 survey had not yet been released for demographic analysis.) And according to some estimates, less than 20 percent of Baby Boomers will ever receive an inheritance. Even for those fortunate few, the amount of an inheritance generally isn't astonishing: Most inheritances are less than $25,000, and sources say that this figure isn't likely to change for Baby Boomers.
A closer look at the SCF data reveals that an old adage still applies: The rich keep getting richer. Just 1.6 percent of heirs in 1998 received more than $100,000 - and they tended to be the wealthiest Americans. Some 45 percent of people who inherited money were already worth between $1 million and $10 million. By contrast, only 6 percent of Americans who had no net worth on paper received a bequest.
Race and ethnicity also figure into who gets a windfall. An analysis of the same survey found that 23 percent of white Americans had already received an inheritance, compared with only 11 percent of black Americans. For Hispanics, the inheritance rate was 4 percent. And for Asians and other races, it was 9 percent, although the sample size was too small to make general conclusions about these groups.
"Blame the income effect," says Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. "Groups with lower income accumulated fewer assets to transfer as inheritances."
Although some have proclaimed retired African Americans the first minority cohort to have accumulated enough assets to pass on bequests, the SCF data paints a different picture. Despite large gains in income, it seems black Americans aren't amassing significant wealth to pass on to their children. Over the past decade blacks' median income rose 34 percent, while their median inheritance rose only 12 percent. The numbers are most distressing for the elderly. More than half of all blacks in households with a member 70 years or older have no financial assets to speak of, and therefore nothing to bequeath.
"If you look at the history of African Americans, it's mostly been a 200-year struggle for survival," says Rodney Jackson, president of the National Center for Black Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. "We've had to worry about self-preservation in order to survive segregation and Jim Crow laws. We haven't had the luxury of accumulating assets to pass on to another generation."
There are several factors that could account for the low inheritance rate among Hispanics. Perhaps the most important is that nearly half of all Latinos born outside the U.S. send money back to their country of origin. Though their median annual income is only $30,000, Hispanics nevertheless send an estimated $23 billion to South America each year, reports the Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility.
"Rather than accumulate money to pass on to the next generation, the pattern for Hispanics and other immigrants is to send money home to their families as they're earning it," says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. "It's going to spouses, children and sometimes parents who've remained behind."
Not surprisingly, inheritance size is related to income, albeit with some demographic wrinkles. In 1998, the median amount of bequests to whites was $55,100, compared with $44,400 to blacks. But Hispanics and Asians received disproportionately large sums of money - a median amount of $94,700 and $76,100, respectively. "There are few truly wealthy Latinos in this country, but they are generous," says Dario Marquez, Jr., president of the Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic College Fund. "The Hispanic inheritance story is about immigrant families whose parents haven't accumulated very much wealth. They came as laborers and caught the American Dream to send their kids to college. So while you can have a prosperous Latino in his 40s earning a lot of money, his immigrant parents are probably quite poor."
By and large, however, these patterns are familiar to most Americans. The haves continue to pass their wealth on to their heirs, keeping money in the family. Meanwhile, the have-nots can only wish they had that luxury.
findarticles.com
I also don't know what the problem is with parents passing on to thier kids the assets they have accumulated during their lifetime.
You need to ask? You're amazing. I once thought you were fairly intelligent and informed.
Why all of us should object is because why should Paris Hilton get to max out on America's resources because she was born into the right family? Why should the rich keep consuming and passing down more and more of this country's resources just because they lucked out and were born to someone who moved here two hundreds years ago and made some money.......more than likely illegally? It stinks. And when the situation gets bad enough, as it will inevitably, there will be another revolution.
Possibly so but its only available to a few. That's exactly my point.
It takes a certain type of personality, personal abilities and drive to get ahead of others. If you look at it as a race, there is only one 1st place, one 2nd place etc.
BS. Paris Hilton is a blonde idiot. If she had a brain, it atrophied long ago. Another myth for the American public, including you, to slurp up with their sugar coated concoctions. I went to school with a number of the richly inherited. Their genes have worn thin. They would be lucky to be janitors if they lost their inheritances.
Some just like to jog and enjoy the nature along the way, fresh air...
Yeah, that's you, huh big joe.......just drifting along eating up the GOP spin they feed you? |
