In September 2026, J.P. Morgan Wealth Management published Five Generational Shifts Reshaping Family Wealth Planning, written by Chris Pegg of its outsourced family office practice. It opens with a fictional family, the Parkers, gathered for a milestone birthday. Over coffee the next morning the talk turns practical: a daughter asks whether the family can help with a home, a son asks who is actually in charge of the long-term financial plan, and the parents admit they feel responsible not only for the money but for the culture that will shape how it is used after they are gone. The article is written for wealthy families, but the conversations it describes happen at every income level, and they are the same conversations that decide whether an aging parent's plan holds together. Here are the five shifts the firm reports, and what each means for the families we serve.
Cost-of-Living Pressure Is Changing How Parents Help Adult Children
J.P. Morgan observes that young adults face much higher costs for housing and food than earlier generations did, which delays milestones such as buying a home or starting a family. The Census Bureau data behind that point are striking: among 25- to 34-year-olds, 45 percent had reached all four milestones of independence, work, marriage, and parenthood in 1975, compared with 21 percent in 2024. More families are therefore willing to help. The firm warns that help given informally and sporadically breeds sibling comparisons, blurred boundaries, and confusion about whether a gift was a one-time offer or an ongoing commitment, and it urges parents to decide by principle, not by personality.
For our clients, the stakes are higher because the parents are also planning for their own care. A down payment for a daughter may be a reasonable gift, but it can also matter under the Medicaid look-back if the parent needs long-term care within five years. Unequal help to children also becomes the raw material for a contest after death. The planning answer is to decide in advance whether help is a gift, a loan, or an advance on inheritance, write it down, and treat each child by a stated rule. Our clients record these decisions on "Schedule B, Gifts and Loans," in their trust binder, which shows whether each transfer is a gift, and whether each loan is to be forgiven or repaid at death. Clarity matters.
Ethics and Philanthropy Are Becoming a Higher Priority
The article reports that some families use values as an anchor, writing values statements that say who they are, how heirs should behave with the money, and what impact the family hopes to have. Giving often carries that purpose. Families form charitable entities, name causes, and involve younger members in choosing recipients, which gives the next generation a relatively safe place to learn shared decision-making.
Formal values statements and private foundations are uncommon even among larger estates, and J.P. Morgan is writing for families at the top of that range. The idea scales down well, though. A letter of wishes that accompanies the estate plan, a charitable bequest, or a donor-advised fund that a grandchild helps direct all give the family a way to talk about what the money is for. That conversation is easier to have while the client can still lead it.
Younger Generations Are Demanding Transparency
J.P. Morgan reports that younger family members expect more openness about family wealth than their elders did, and that this can help or hurt. More conversation can make members feel valued, but it can also push parents and grandparents to share more than they planned, sooner than they intended. The firm points to its own research, The Quiet Disconnect in Family Wealth Conversations, which finds that about seven in ten family members have difficulty discussing wealth. Among its figures, 87 percent of millennials and Gen Z value these conversations, while about a third of boomers say they are not important, and about one in five family members avoids or postpones the topic. Many learned key information only after a crisis.
That last finding is the point for incapacity planning. A crisis is exactly when an agent under a power of attorney or a successor trustee needs to know where the documents are, who holds the accounts, and what the parent wants. The article's call for clear rules about what is shared, when, and with whom is the same idea behind a family communication plan, such as the one in our post on building a family command center. Sharing the plan does not mean sharing the numbers. It means that the people who will act know their roles before they have to.
Premarital Planning Is Becoming More Important and More Sophisticated
The article ties this shift to later marriages and blended families, often with business equity in the mix. Families are using prenuptial agreements together with trust protection. The article's example is an inheritance left to a child in an irrevocable trust meant to keep it nonmarital, backed by a prenup that says the same thing. A separate non-marital revocable living trust can serve the same purpose. Some families pay for independent counsel for the soon-to-be spouse, and some add goodwill gestures such as paying off student loans or putting a newlywed home in both names.
The same dynamics apply later in life. A widowed client who remarries at seventy-five faces the same questions with higher stakes: whose children inherit what, who makes health care decisions, and how a spouse's care needs affect the other's assets. The principle in the article holds at any age. Independent counsel and an open conversation build trust, and an agreement discussed early is a gesture of respect, not an accusation.
Families Are Leaning Into Health Concierge Services
The final shift is about health care. Because medical care is complex and expensive, some families hire concierge services that coordinate providers and open access to specialists, so decisions can be made quickly when the family is stressed. The article lists care navigation, patient advocacy, coverage decisions, and privacy as the pieces to plan.
Most families do not need a concierge, but every family needs those four functions. A health care power of attorney and living will name who decides. A HIPAA release lets that person talk to the doctors. A geriatric care manager or a trusted family member can navigate and advocate. And a hospital discharge card in the planning binder tells the hospital that the goal is to go home. Our Aging in Place Planning Workbook walks families through these steps.
What J.P. Morgan Suggests Families Do
J.P. Morgan ends with five steps for adapting a family's plan. They are written for large family offices, but each one scales to any family, so the list below restates them and adds a word on how they apply to our clients.
- Clarify the Terms of Support: Be flexible about giving help as needs arise, but be clear about the intention to treat similarly situated family members fairly.
- Put Values Into Practice: Define and write down the family's values, and act on them personally and through giving.
- Create a Transparency Plan: Decide in advance how and when the family's plan will be shared.
- Prepare for New Family Members: Discuss prenuptial agreements early and respectfully, offer independent counsel, and welcome new family in ways that reflect the family's values.
- Plan for Family-Wide Health Care: Coordinate insurance and coverage so every family member gets guidance and keeps access to care.
None of the five steps requires a complex structure. Each requires a decision, made early and written down, by a family willing to talk about it.
The article closes with a line that is worth keeping: the more resilient families are not the ones with the most complex structures but the ones with the clearest shared understanding. That is also what elder law planning tries to produce. The documents matter, but the family's shared understanding of what the documents say, and why, is what makes them work and makes the plan resilient. Source note: the shifts described here are J.P. Morgan's observations from its client relationships, aimed at families with significant wealth, not a survey of the general population. The research figures above come from a separate J.P. Morgan study.
Published November 11, 2026 in the Aging in Place Planning and Elderlaw Blog. This article is general information, not legal advice; see our disclaimer.