The headline number from Northwestern Mutual’s 2025 Planning & Progress Study, Wave 5 on Leaving a Legacy, is the kind of figure that quietly reframes how American families are thinking about money. Three in four parents, 77%, say they would feel comfortable formally including their teenage to young adult children in their annual meeting with a financial advisor. The reason most often cited is education. Parents want their kids in the room so they can learn the process before they ever have to live it.
For decades, the cultural script around family money was to keep balances, wills, and intentions private until a death or a crisis pulled back the curtain. The data now suggests a different approach is taking hold: bring the next generation into the conversation while everyone is still healthy, still earning, and still able to ask questions out loud.
A generation that wants to leave more than it expects to receive
The clearest evidence that something has changed sits inside the generational breakdown. 39% of Gen Z expect to leave an inheritance, more than any other generation, while only 30% expect to receive one. Millennials show a similar tilt. Younger adults are treating legacy planning as an active responsibility rather than a passive event that might happen to them someday.
At the same time, inheritance matters more to them. Among Gen Z and Millennials expecting to receive an inheritance, 63% and 69%, respectively, say it is critical or highly critical to their long-term financial security, well above the 57% average across all generations. Younger Americans are viewing family wealth as a foundation. That framing changes the stakes of the advisor conversation. It is the planning meeting that determines whether the financial scaffolding actually holds.
The gap between intent and paperwork
Where the data gets honest is in the execution. 60% of Americans expecting to leave an inheritance have had family conversations about their plans, which sounds healthy until the back end comes into view. 39% of Boomers and older adults lack a will, and 61% of Gen X is in the same position. Families want to pass wealth along, and they are increasingly willing to talk about it, yet the legal structure that turns intent into reality is missing for a large share of households.
Bringing children into an advisor meeting is one of the few mechanisms that closes the gap between a kitchen-table conversation and a signed estate plan. The advisor becomes a translator. Parents articulate what they want, children hear it in real time, and the documents that actually move money get drafted while everyone is still in agreement.
An economic backdrop that makes the conversation urgent
The wider data helps explain why families are reaching for structure right now. The personal savings rate has slipped from 6.2% in the first quarter of 2024 to 4.0% in the first quarter of 2026, even as per capita disposable income climbed from $63,638 to $68,617 over the same span. Households are earning more and saving a smaller share of it.
Inflation is part of the squeeze. Headline PCE inflation accelerated to 3.5% year over year in March 2026, up from 2.36% a year earlier, with energy prices rising 14.43% over the same period. Consumer sentiment sits at 53.3 as of March 2026, deep in pessimistic territory. Yet unemployment is steady at 4.3% and average hourly earnings reached $37.41 in April 2026, up from $36.12 a year earlier. Families have income coming in and jobs that feel stable, but the cushion is thinner. The combination is exactly the environment in which multi-generational planning becomes practical rather than theoretical.
What the numbers actually say about how to do this
The Northwestern Mutual data does not predict that every family will execute the handoff perfectly. It documents a behavioral shift, and that shift is worth taking seriously, and two concrete steps follow from the findings.
For households without a will or trust, the intent‑to‑execution gap in Gen X and Boomer families is the largest vulnerability in the entire report. For families who already meet with an advisor each year, the 77% comfort level suggests the cultural barrier to including the next generation has largely disappeared. What remains is the invitation.
Generational wealth, done well, starts as a conversation long before it becomes a transfer. The data shows that most American parents already understand that. The work left to do is procedural, and that is a far better problem to have than the one families faced a generation ago.
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