Are boomers getting a bad rap for hoarding wealth from millennials and gen Z?

financialpost.com:

A tweet from a financial advisor in Arizona, Adam Harding, went viral this summer when he shared a conversation he had with a client with a healthy bank account in her 70s. He had encouraged her to share that wealth with her kids and grandkids before she died. The more than 1,500 responses showed the extraordinary divide between the generations, with many gen Zers and millennials saying that baby boomers especially are hanging on to their money too long and boomers saying that’s their right.

“I think it just struck a big chord because there’s the people who are struggling right now and who want some help,” he said.

That tweet joins the surge of others where younger generations protest the financial advantages of older generations, and complain the largesse is not being passed down.

It is a generational phenomenon that facing financial challenges and living paycheque-to-paycheque has been the reality for many in their early working years, especially since the pandemic. But is their circumstance so different from the generations before them? Or has it always been that those who save and build wealth for decades end up as the haves?

Harding says that, while, to some, baby boomers might look more like Scrooge than Santa, he is quick to add that not having to depend on adult children is one of the things that can allow the younger generations to build wealth.

“We have clients that are currently in long-term care situations where they are rapidly spending down the eventual inheritance that their kids will get,” says Harding, who adds that younger generations need to consider whether their parents may become dependent on them.

“Because if not, that’s a form of generational wealth,” he adds. “Your parents have saved and