Share of Household Net Worth Held by Silent Generation and earlier (Fed DFA)

## What this measures

The percentage of all U.S. household net worth held by households headed by someone born before 1946, quarterly from 1989:Q3. Latest: 10.7% in 2026:Q2. The series began at 80.1% in 1989:Q3.

## Why it matters

In 1989 this group held four-fifths of household wealth; measured each fourth quarter, its share has fallen every year since (79.8% in 1989:Q4, 11.8% in 2025:Q4) as the cohort ages and its estates pass on. It is the starting point of the wealth transfer between generations.

## How to read it

The four generation shares sum to 100 each quarter. A share moves with the cohort's size and age as much as with markets, so read it against the other three, not against zero.

## What it does not say

The Fed sorts households by the birth year of the reference person: "Silent" is everyone born before 1946, Baby Boom 1946–1964, Gen X 1965–1980 and "Millennial" everyone born in 1981 or later, so the Millennial group also holds Gen Z and younger. Generations differ in size and in age, so a share says nothing about wealth per household or per person. The DFA is a model that distributes the aggregate Financial Accounts using the Survey of Consumer Finances; it is revised each quarter.

## Source

Federal Reserve Board, Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA), dfa-generation-shares.csv in dfa.zip (federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa). Quarterly from 1989:Q3, republished with each Z.1 release (mid-March, June, September and December); every run rewrites the whole history so revisions carry through. Federal Reserve Board data are in the public domain. Refreshed by /api/cron/dfa-sync.