In the USA how many people inherit 1 million usd?

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Straight-Stick-2752@reddit

I don't even understand clearly what you want to ask.

Are you asking about getting parents' properties?

Some do get. Some don't. If those assets are like a basic house, a car, some money.

Richies do pass down their properties. Like hotel business to one child, car business to another.

But I think you lied about one million dollars and Indian children getting it from their parents.

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EconomyScall@reddit

Between my parents and inlaws there's like 10 million dollars 🤔

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notaskindoctor@reddit

You’re in luck: that money will nearly cover their nursing home and memory care expenses.

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EconomyScall@reddit

We already have plans for that. Nursing homes are a scam.

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XrayGuy08@reddit

As soon as grandpa forgets why he opened the fridge, out to pasture he goes.

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Suppafly@reddit

As soon as grandpa forgets why he opened the fridge, out to pasture he goes.

This, everyone assumes nursing homes and end of life care are a scam that they won't need right up until they do need it.

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jigokubi@reddit

When it's time to change Grandpa's diaper, I'm pretty sure he'll have a brand-new outlook on nursing homes.

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EconomyScall@reddit

We used my grandma's savings to buy a house and paid someone to care for her full time. She's dead and now the house is rented. Doubled our equity in less than 10 years.

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DarceysExtensions@reddit

Realistically you need 4-5 people to care for somebody properly full time. If you only had one person for grandma, she was left unattended for long periods of time

Nobody works 24/7.

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EconomyScall@reddit

Nope, she was never alone. You sound like those nursing homes that steal life savings from old people.

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Euphoric_Ease4554@reddit

We have plans too. Grandpa wants to move in with his daughter’s family if he is the surviving spouse. If it’s Grandma, she wants to be alone with her privacy and her life alert button. 😁

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EconomyScall@reddit

Good. Avoid nursing homes. They wanted 20k a month.

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Euphoric_Ease4554@reddit

What concerns me even more is the lack of good care.

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EconomyScall@reddit

A kid making minimum wage checks on them every few hours

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In wealth it could be. There are many starter homes in my region now appraised ar 500k plus due to housing shortages and inflation. If some older parents died leaving behind a home and some investment accounts like 401ks that could be a million easy.

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Youcants1tw1thus@reddit

It’s already in a trust or investments.

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whitemike40@reddit

I suspect there’s a currency exchange issue here ₹1 million is about 10 grand which isn’t common but also not unheard of for people to inherit

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CadetLink@reddit

Yeah i can see 10k inheritance being fairly common insofar as liquidated assets and random collected items. More if your parents owned a home but thats <50% of the population in my county now (King County, Seattle). Obviously there will be parents that die with lots of debt, likely incurred at their death because "grandma is a fighter!". But i get the sense that attitude is fading fast.

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cantseemeimblackice@reddit

OP specifies USD

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artemisinatheyway@reddit

It’s not that uncommon. A lot of middle class/upper middle class people have over a million in assets.

My family isn’t rich by any means but my parents’ house is worth over a million (they bought it for under $200k).

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NCErin@reddit

Are you asking how many 20-25 year olds can EXPECT to inherit in their lifetimes, or how many inherit money while aged 20-25?

Folks rarely receive inheritances while aged 20-25 as it’s common to leave money to first your spouse and then to your children. By the time both parties have passed, their children are typically older than 25.

I did receive an inheritance from a grandparent when I was in my mid-30’s only because the child it was left to (one of my parents) had passed. So my parent’s portion was divided amongst me and my siblings.

As far as how large the inheritance is, that varies greatly.

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Euphoric_Ease4554@reddit

So many people need to take a basic money management class. Along with impulse control and education in a field that has well-paying jobs, that would help so much.

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kellyforeal@reddit

Inherit? What American TV are you watching? Trust fund babies exist. Normal Americans can take ages to be OK with money. We might set some aside and HOPE there will be $1m someday.

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Ballmaster9002@reddit

The USA has special rules around "death money" of various forms, like retirement plans, life insurance, and inheritance from dead relatives. Often, it's not taxed at all. Meaning if someone leaves you $1MM in their will, you get $1MM in your bank account tax free.

Google tells me \~10% of households have a net worth greater than $1MM. So let's assume 10% of estates are valued at least $1MM when the inheritance is settled. So 10 out of 100 Americans could theoretically receive at least $1MM in inheritance. That would be reduced by people who split inheritances or when money gets donated to charity, etc.

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Suppafly@reddit

Meaning if someone leaves you $1MM in their will, you get $1MM in your bank account tax free.

Actually it wouldn't be in their will, it'd be because you're the named beneficiary on the insurance policy, bypassing their estate. If it was left to you through a will, you would be paying tax on it and it'd be coming from their estate.

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

Don’t Americans get their share from grandparents as well wouldn’t that make this share higher?

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sneezhousing@reddit

No grandparents often only leave to their kids not grandkids. Then they have to wait until their parents doe to get inheritance

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

U didnt get my point I am saying combined net worth of a childs parent and grandparent at the moment say parents net worth 500k usd and both grandparents have 700k usd so how many children will this way have 1 million usd to their name

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Dreamghost11@reddit

That's not how it works in the United States. You have no claim to your parents or grandparents money before they die. They don't even have to leave anything to their kids when they do die; they can will it to anybody or anything else.

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seatownquilt-N-plant@reddit

My grandparents were poor, I'm not having any children.

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Ballmaster9002@reddit

This isn't an "American" thing, it's just a legal thing at this point.

As I said, some things skip this whole process. Things like life insurance name "beneficiaries" who get the money, that all happens first, and that's just whomever is named. I could name my kid, my grandkid, even my neighbor or just some random person I've never met.

Then the bills get paid out assuming there is enough money. Debt isn't inherited, so if there isn't enough money in the state the debt goes away. (people might try to trick you though).

I guess your question is, are some people getting money from their Grandparents?

I suppose, but you'd expect the Grandparents would give the money to their kids (the person's parents or uncles/aunts) first.

This might be getting too deep, but if a person dies with zero instructions on how to proceed, this is called "intestate" and money flows to closet living relatives and shared by relation.

So if my Grandpa has $10MM and dies intestate, it's not like the whole family shares the $10MM. This becomes a whole legal thing and follows certain rules - it goes - spouse, children, then goes back up to parents, then to siblings, then to progressively distant relations (cousins, nephews/nieces, etc.)

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shammy_dammy@reddit

My parents got their parents' inheritances.

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BreadPuddding@reddit

If grandparents die without a will, the parents are the ones who inherit (inheritance generally goes to a surviving spouse first, if no spouse, then an equal split amongst children, grandchildren would get their parent’s share if their parent predeceased their grandparent). Grandparents may will a certain amount to their grandchildren, but often there is little to inherit after end-of-life care is paid for. Only my mother inherited money directly from my grandfather, though my grandparents had set up an educational trust when I was a child and I did get money for university from that.

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randomlybev@reddit

No. There is no expectation of inheritance from grandparents. My parents did inherit money when their parents died, but grandchildren aren’t “owed” anything

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snoweel@reddit

It depends what the grandparents put in their will. By default, it would go to the children of the deceased (if spouse is already dead). In practice sometimes when this happens the heirs (children) will pass some along to the grandchildren to help them buy a car, make a down payment on a house, etc.

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Dreamghost11@reddit

No, not necessarily. Some grandparents do leave money for grandkids but some only leave money to their kids. And many elderly people use up all their savings paying for end of life care.

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chinchaaa@reddit

if anyone is going to inherit something, it will most likely not be in their 20s. when do peoples parents die? 40s, 50s, etc. that is when someone is most likely to get something.

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Suppafly@reddit

if anyone is going to inherit something, it will most likely not be in their 20s. when do peoples parents die? 40s, 50s, etc. that is when someone is most likely to get something.

This, my parents are likely leaving their money to my kids, and my kids will be actual adults by the time they inherit anything.

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grapebeyond227@reddit

No kidding. I’m 52 and both of my parents are very much alive. Heck my last grandparent did not die till I was 49.

Oh and I attended my great-great-grandfather’s 100th birthday party.

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Chica3@reddit

It's very common in India for children to inherit a million USD? Without seeing a reliable source for this claim, I very much doubt that it's true.

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Outlaw_Josie_Snails@reddit

1 million rupees (~$11,000 USD).

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Suppafly@reddit

1 million rupees (~$11,000 USD).

Even that is a little hard to believe being common.

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goblin_hipster@reddit

Yeah, but do they mean the equivalent of one million dollars? Which would be 94,916,860 rupees, apparently. If they meant one million rupees, that's $10,535.54, which is probably more realistic, although generally I don't think anyone in the US is getting any significant inheritance.

But they said one million dollars USD, which is confusing everyone lol

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Say_Hennething@reddit

Can't afford trash cans because they're handing out millions in inheritance to everyone

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devilscabinet@reddit

this is very common in India these days

That isn't true. Where are you getting that information?

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

Almost every home in indian metro costs 450k usd approx then accompanied by properties and saving from both grandparents a child can easily expect 1 million USD

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devilscabinet@reddit

You didn't specify metropolitan areas. Less than 15% of Indians live in a metropolitan area. The average annual salary in India is under $5,000.

If the average Indian citizen inherited a million dollars, you would not see the rampant poverty in that country that you do.

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JediLincoln14@reddit

I doubt it's "common" to inherit $1 million in India.

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tsukiii@reddit

Maybe if you grew up rich and only hang out with other rich families.

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PBRStreetgang1979@reddit

In the US alone, an estimated $50 to $70 trillion in personal assets is expected to be transferred from the World War 2 generation to their Boomer children and then on to GenX and Millennials. So I'd guess that would be a lot of $1 million transfers. In my own family, my WW2 generation grandparents helped their grandchildren (I'm GenX) pay college expenses and bought us our first houses. So it is not as if it is liquid wealth sitting around, but it went into things that encouraged further prosperity and stability.

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sean8877@reddit

my WW2 generation grandparents helped their grandchildren (I'm GenX) pay college expenses and bought us our first houses

You're really lucky, I don't know anyone who had grandparents that could buy them a house. Most of the people's grandparents I know are barely able to live a middle to lower class lifestyle.

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PBRStreetgang1979@reddit

To be fair, 3/4 of my grandparents were poor or lower middle class. One grandfather in particular was very parsimonious with his spending. He adroitly invested in the stock market and parlayed his monthly salary into a nice chunk.

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SabresBills69@reddit

understand currency difference.

most family inheritance might be around $100,00. if thry die sudden it’s worth more. if thry go the nursing home route their savings get depleted.

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

I didn’t mean what they will inherit but exactly how much their share is in how much their parents and grandparents are worth

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SabresBills69@reddit

For most families in the USA their wealth comes from retirement savings they put away over the years into tax free savings plans ( my dad had around $300K) and do thry own a home ( my parents was about $75,000). My mom died first. My dad went into a nursing home so we had to sell the house. When he dies he had about $70,000 left for us 3 kids. Besides that there were heirloom things, family things you don’t sell. He was on a pension from work and social security. These end when he died.

with those younger than my parents, they don’t have much in longbterm savings accounts because they bought an expensive home. My dad lived in a lower home value area. His home elsewhere could have been worth $500,000 or more. With Covid you say many retire from work, sell home, pocked money, move and buy a cheap house and live on the earnings from home sale,

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blipsman@reddit

It's pretty rare to inherit that amount of money. Definitely less than 5% of people, probably more like 1-2%.

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Deep_Contribution552@reddit

Average number of kids in a household that has kids is 2, so assuming all wealth is evenly split among children we are basically looking at what share of the older generation households are millionaires. With this website https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator/ we can ballpark the figure using the 50-54 age bracket as representative of the parents of present-day 23 year olds. The result is ~13 percent of 23 year olds would stand to inherit 1 million USD or more, neglecting immigration, taxes, and charitable donations.

We will see how this plays out in another generation.

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

What about grandparents contri to this wealth

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Positive-Froyo-1732@reddit

My grandmother left a tiny estate, all of which went to my dad. I think he used it to help pay off his mortgage. That probably indirectly contributed to my parents' current net worth, but it certainly won't be $1 million.

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Deep_Contribution552@reddit

Yeah, that would increase it since many 23 year olds would have living grandparents. But it’s hard to do the math completely since grandparent wealth is going to be correlated with parent wealth already… and I’m realizing I neglecting present wealth for 23 year olds too although that’s probably not making a noticeable difference.

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TsundereLoliDragon@reddit

since this is very common in India these days

I find this hard to believe

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G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit

Pretty sure they mean 1 million rupees

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Chimney-Imp@reddit

Comes out to $11k usd at current exchange rates

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pinniped90@reddit

Plot twist, it's one million rupees, all in well-worn 10 rupee notes.

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-Boston-Terrier-@reddit

this is very common in India these days

Indians commonly receiving $1M USD seems incredibly unlikely considering the median household income in India is about $2,000 USD.

In the USA how many people inherit 1 million usd?

I doubt there are any statistics on it but probably not many. It's rare for families to have $1M in cash or liquid investments. Home values are climbing and $1M homes are becoming somewhat common place but only about 20% of all people in the US are only children meaning the vast majority of parents leaving a $1M+ home to their children are leaving it to multiple children to split.

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Ok-Ambassador8271@reddit

You mean to tell me having $1 million USD cash is common but you're most likely still shitting outside? GTFOH

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Muted_Comfortable561@reddit (OP)

In India metros an average home alone costs 700k usd something

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Metal_Rider@reddit

This is absolutely not true

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Top-Web3806@reddit

Pretty damn uncommon

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Technical-Bath9108@reddit

Are you fishing for a wife? I mean, it's cool if you are, but I'm not sure this is the best way.

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Technical-Bath9108@reddit

It may be common in your neighborhood, but it's pretty much unheard of in my neighborhood.

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LABELyourPHOTOS@reddit

It's tough to say. About 10% have that kind of money but end of life care is very, very expensive.

And most people lose their parents way later than 23. Probably less way than 1% of 23 year olds have access to a million bucks.

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SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit

Well at .05, in India thats still 73.5 million

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LABELyourPHOTOS@reddit

Yeah-median wealth there is like 3k USD - but the upper castes have a chance at wealth. It's a real have and have not situation.

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SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit

For sure, when you have 1.47 billion people you can end up with all kinds of screwy numbers

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alwaysboopthesnoot@reddit

Very few. People live longer now and are often sicker as they do. They use the equity from their homes to finance nursing home and hospital bills now. They’re not willing the house or it’s increase in value, to their kids.

Homes (or maybe some job related life insurance), are likely at the top of the ways older generations pass wealth on to the next generation.

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toashtyt@reddit

What does age have to do with the rest of the question?

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Dandylion71888@reddit

Pretty sure that they just want to tell people that they’ve inherited $1m. But also probably not, they just want to say it.

But also, if it’s true, their idea of it being common is because of their privilege and the privilege of the people around them.

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WarrenMulaney@reddit

Nobody likes you when you're 23.

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cerealandcorgies@reddit

and are still more amused by TV shows

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rdirtytwo@reddit

What the hell is ADD?

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JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit

I'm pretty sure he had a 23-year-old American on vacation brag about it and now he's wondering if all Americans have the experience of incredibly wealthy ones.

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MarkNutt25@reddit

According to the latest survey conducted by the Federal Reserve, between 2016 and 2019, the average inheritance received in the U.S. was $46,200. Even among the top 1%, the average was "only" $719,000.

So, for $1 million or more, you're probably looking at something like 0.5% of Americans.

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xSparkShark@reddit

I think people in this thread are overestimating how much a million dollars is in 2026 and underestimating how many American households have more than it. Obviously if your inheritance is split equally across children you need an additional million per child, but yeah it’s not exceedingly rare to inherit assets worth a million if you come from moderate wealth.

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DarthKnah@reddit

In 2017, only 0.2% of estates exceeded $5.5 million (the cutoff at which they were subject to estate tax). Around 7% of Americans are millionaires (but most just barely, and won’t have enough to pass on a whole million). So the number of children inheriting $1 million is probably 1 or 2 out of 100.

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Living_Fig_6386@reddit

Surveys say that about 8% of young people expect to inherit at lease $1 million, but less than 2% of people actually receive an inheritance of at least $1 million. It's uncommon. I don't suspect that it's common in India where 95% of the population receives <$7500 / year.

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rawbface@reddit

The average monthly salary in India is around 400 USD.

The average monthly salary in the USA is around 5000 USD.

Your premise makes no sense. I don't expect to inherit anything, and I'm well-off.

The only people I know who got an inheritance AT ALL, paid for it with their parents' lives wayyyyy too early.

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sarcasticorange@reddit

India has 3 times as many people as the US.

The US has 30 times as many millionaires.

As such, it is much more common in the US than it is in India. However, it is relatively rare in both.

About 7% of people in the US are millionaires. So the rate would be somewhat close to that.

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shammy_dammy@reddit

I'm not quite sure what you're asking about here but I will point out that if a child inherits a median priced house in the USA, they're already a third of the way to a million dollars. Add a couple of sizeable life insurance policies and yeah, you'd be close.

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MarkNutt25@reddit

Adding in big life insurance payouts only really makes sense if your parents die relatively young.

Most retired people in the US don't have traditional life insurance. If they have any life insurance at all, its usually just enough to cover their own funeral expenses.

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she-dont-use-jellyyy@reddit

lol

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morosco@reddit

It's impossible to have a number because every settling of an estate has its own unique circumstances, and goals for the people leaving the property.

About 25 million American households have a net worth of more than a million, that number is increasing with the value of real estate, but it's impossible to know how much of that gets passed along to kids. Much is eaten up with end-of-life medical care, sometimes kids aren't left the whole estate or anything at all, some people estate plan well and some don't.

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kuniggety@reddit

According to google, 2-3%. That number is larger than I thought. That will vary throughout the states as some have much higher density of high income families than others (north eastern states vs south eastern for an example).

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caryn1477@reddit

I wish, this isn't a common thing.

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grapebeyond227@reddit

Is this some sort of boast?

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bananarama032@reddit

That's a very uncommon occurrence here in the US.

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WKU-Alum@reddit

A quick google search returns the average inheritance of the top 1% of the US is \~720k. So like 1 in 1000, maybe?

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Avery_Thorn@reddit

... and then OP woke up.

Thanks for the laugh.

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FlamingBagOfPoop@reddit

Wealth is not entitled. A parent is not obligated to leave a single dollar to any of their children if they do not wish to.

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biggreasyrhinos@reddit

It is common to inherit 95 million rupees?

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PossumJenkinsSoles@reddit

I have known of like one person in my entire life who inherited around that amount because her dad died right before he was about to retire and she was an only child and he was unmarried. Pretty rare set of circumstances for America.

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mdavis360@reddit

Is this a middle school math question?

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notsosecretshipper@reddit

Either you are vastly overestimating the wealth of the average American or there is an exchange rate misunderstanding.

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bluelily216@reddit

I only know of one person who received a sizeable inheritance, and it was only because her father worked for the government and had excellent life insurance. My kids are screwed if I die. I'm screwed if my husband dies. And when my father dies all I will inherit is his debt and his heart problems.

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Perdendosi@reddit

I don't know how to look up that statistic.

Certainly, the number is non-zero. Heck, these days the average home price in L.A. is nearly $1 million USD.

https://www.zillow.com/home-values/12447/los-angeles-ca/

So if someone's an only child and their parents who live in L.A. die, they can "expect" to inherit about $1 million.

But I'd say that a majority of families don't talk about inheritance, and a majority of people don't expect to get millions of dollars from their parents because (a) parents spend their assets during retirement, so there's not much left, (b) parents don't have much of an estate to begin with, (c) we don't have a culture that has an expectation of inheritance.

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DOMSdeluise@reddit

a brief google search informs me that there are perhaps 24 million millionaires in the United States. so perhaps that many children will stand to inherit a sum that large.

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Bluemonogi@reddit

It is not common to inherit 1 million dollars.

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benicebuddy@reddit

1/10 adults have 1m net worth in the US.

Average adult has 1.5 kids.

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Sea-Chain7394@reddit

I know well over 100 people and none have or are expecting to inherit anywhere near $1 million.

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Pitiful_Lion7082@reddit

That doesn't really happen here.

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thomsenite256@reddit

This doesnt really make sense. But I would say probably less than 1-2% might expect to inherit that much. Most Americans have some but mostly not enough saved up for a comfortable retirement and medical costs escalate into you5 80s and 90s so if people live that long they will probably spend their money staying alive.

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deathshr0ud@reddit

What kind of question is this?

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MyUsername2459@reddit

What in the world are you talking about?

You aren't making any sense.

Are you asking how many people inherit a million dollars? That's very, very rare. However, what does someone being 23 years old have to do with this?

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