Boomers to kids: You can’t handle the loot!

A new survey of the well-to-do suggests that peoples’ attitudes towards money, and what to do with it after they’re gone, tend to vary by generation.

Baby boomers, it appears, are much less confident than members of the generation before them and the generation after them that their children will be sufficiently prepared to handle whatever financial inheritance they receive. Just 32 percent of baby boomers feel their children will be ready to cope with the cash, while 52 percent of Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers, and 54 percent of people 67 and older feel their kids can handle the loot.

The findings are in a report from U.S. Trust, part of the Global Wealth and Investment Management unit of Bank of America. Its survey, the U.S. Trust 2012 Insights on Wealth and Worth, is derived from a national survey of 642 high and ultra-high net worth individuals _ those with at least $3 million in assets to invest, not including their primary residence.

The younger and oldest generations also are more in agreement over the value of leaving an inheritance to their children than are baby boomers. Of those aged 18 to 46, 76 percent said it is important to leave something for their children. Of those age 67 and higher, 73 percent said that was important.

But only 55 percent of boomers though it important to leave their children an inheritance. One in three boomers who don’t think it important said they would rather leave their money to charity.

U.S. Trust said that can be attributed to the differences in experience that each generation had. Boomers, unlike those before and after them, caught the wave of the longest bull market in history.