Using the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, we broke down mean inheritance levels by wealth decile. It is important to emphasize here that these are self-reported inheritances. Survey participants are asked to think back throughout their life and identify all the wealth transfers they have received and when they received them. Naturally this is prone to misreporting and, one would think, especially prone to underreporting, as people tend to forget what gifts they have received over the years.

Nonetheless, as you would expect, wealthier families are much more likely to have inherited wealth. Additionally, the wealthier a family is, the more they have generally inherited.