The largest wealth transfer in human history is moving through American families right now.
The wealth itself is real, accumulated by the baby boomer generation through four decades of strong stock markets, real-estate appreciation and pension benefits
The money exists. What’s at stake is how much of it will actually reach the heirs it was meant for. Most Read from MarketWatch Three powerful forces are standing in the way — and all of them are getting stronger.
But almost no estate plan has been updated to address any of them. The first force is the most expensive and widespread: the cost of long-term care. The 2025 CareScout Cost of Care Survey, the most recent edition of the long-running Genworth study, puts the national median price for a private nursing home room at $129,575 a year.