# Our intergenerational wealth gaps

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2021-09-01

baby-boomers, economics, gen-xers, generation-x, household-wealth, millennials, wealth-gap

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https://twitter.com/graykimbrough/status/1198703644721524744?s=20

[This is a chart](https://twitter.com/graykimbrough/status/1198703644721524744?s=20) by economist Gray Kimbrough from 2019. I recently saw it resurface and so I thought I would reshare it here on the blog.

The y-axis is the percentage of US household wealth (by demographic cohort). And the x-axis is median cohort age. So one way to look at this chart is as follows.

When the median age of a Baby Boomer was 35 (which happened in 1990), they owned about 21% of US household wealth.

When the median age of a Gen Xer was 35 (which happened in 2008), they owned about 9% of US household wealth.

Millennials haven't yet hit a median age of 35, but in 2019 they owned about 3.2% of US household wealth.

Of course, one thing to keep in mind is that [these demographic cohorts are not the same size](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/03/precariousness-modern-young-adulthood-one-chart/). In 1990, Boomers represented 31% of the US population. And in 2008, Gen Xers were only 22% of the population.

But even if you normalize, there are some intergenerational wealth gaps here.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/our-intergenerational-wealth-gaps)*