Americans are becoming richer quicker. For example, last year, there were 492 American billionaires, evidencing that 100 new billionaires were created in the past five years. Another historical threshold is the 5% increase from 2014 of households with more than $5 million in investible assets. These statistics introduce a broader, younger, more geographically diverse group of self-made magnates. Another growing trend with these moguls is their age and gender; more and more of the ultra wealthy are female and much younger than we have seen in the past. Their fortunes, however, are not keeping them from regular fears and insecurities, such as their investment portfolios, financial security, and the effect of wealth on their children. With this surge comes the need for dedicated services helping with specific issues of inheritance. Wealth managers are establishing clients’ goals of shared values over their wealth and how the family can manifest these values through the generations.
See Stacy Perman, Penta Millionaires: The New Rising Class, Barron’s, September 17, 2016.
Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
