61% of estate dollars from surviving spouses were transferred by decedents in their 90s and 100s.
This statistic should change how you think about the “Great Wealth Transfer.”
Keep in mind, wealth does not transfer when people die.
It transfers when people with wealth die.
Those are not the same thing.
Higher-income people live longer. In an AMA study, the highest-income men lived about 10 years longer than the lowest-income men. For women, the gap was 14 years.
So the age of wealth transfer is not average life expectancy.
It is much older.
And in married couples, the real generational transfer usually does not happen at the first death. It happens when the surviving spouse dies.
That is why this IRS number matters so much.
It tells us that the bulk of estate wealth is not moving from the old to the young.
It is moving from the oldest old to the merely old.
So the next time you read that Millennials are about to get rich from the “Great Wealth Transfer,” pause for a second.
That’s not how it works.
This also matters for charities.
Charitable transfers also tend to happen at the death of the surviving spouse. (For married male decedents, charitable bequests are especially uncommon.)
That pushes a large share of charitable estate transfers to very old ages too.
In fact, half of charitable estate dollars come from decedents age 89 and older.
And there is another wrinkle.
The charitable part of an estate plan is often highly unstable in the last 3 to 5 years of life. That is usually when the final charitable beneficiaries are added (and dropped).
So the decisions that ultimately direct charitable estate wealth are often made very late in life.
Bottom line for advisors: plan for inheritance later than clients expect.
Bottom line for fundraisers: don’t lose contact with your oldest friends.
The timing of wealth transfer changes strategy.
References:
Internal Revenue Service. (2026, March 17). SOI tax stats – Estate tax year of death tables (2019, Tables 5 and 6 widows and widowers). https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-estate-tax-year-of-death-tables
Winters, M. (2016, April 25). A growing health disparity: Life expectancy for richest, poorest Americans. American Medical Association. https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/health-equity/growing-health-disparity-life-expectancy-richest-poorest-americans
For more on charitable estate planning statistics, see https://www.encouragegenerosity.com/
Russell James, J.D., Ph.D., CFP®️ is a professor at Texas Tech University. He directs the on-campus and online graduate program in Charitable Financial Planning and also teaches Charitable Gift Law at the Texas Tech University School of Law. Dr. James has over 100 publications in academic journals, conference proceedings, professional periodicals, and books including 20 on neuroimaging and neuroeconomics. He has been quoted in a variety of news sources including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC News, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
