They could end up becoming a “golden generation.” The 2024 edition of Knight Frank’s wealth report has not yet even been released in full and the Anglo-Saxon and American press are already massively relaying the shocking sentence that sums it up: millennials, or generation Y, are on the verge of to become “the richest generation in history”. The international real estate agency has in fact revealed an extract from its annual publication in a note.
“Over the next decade, a massive transfer of wealth and assets will occur as the Silent Generation (1920s to 1940s) and Baby Boomers (1945 to 1960s) pass the baton to Millennials (1980s-1990s)”, the Knight Frank experts immediately explain. In the United States alone, nearly 90,000 billion dollars are expected to circulate between generations, “making wealthy millennials the richest generation in history.”
A windfall that should shake up the economic outlook. “The difference in perspectives between younger and older generations will result in a substantial reevaluation of marketing strategies for anyone wishing to sell products or services to this newly wealthy group,” the report analyzes. Especially since “this transfer occurs in a context of seismic changes in the way assets are used”. And Generation Y’s preferred area of investment could well be the energy transition. As proof, Knight Frank offers its opinion survey according to which four out of five millennials would try to reduce their carbon consumption.
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If the entire report will appear on March 6, the revealed extract did not fail to provoke a reaction. “Being part of the richest 1% of Americans is becoming more difficult,” observes Bloomberg. The American channel CNBC insists on the economic difficulties that millennials are experiencing today, unable to buy a house or build up solid savings, due to “soaring rents, rising inflation and student debt.”
For its part, the Guardian is ironic about the image of millennials, sometimes “described as frivolous spenders squandering their income in overpriced coffee shops”, recalling in passing that they still bear the “economic scars” of the financial crisis of 2008 and that they are “struggling to catch up with the standard of living of older groups”. Before continuing: “Their future financial firepower will likely be an unequal lottery, determined primarily by the legacy of previous generations.” All that remains is to be born under the right star.