Even billionaires are worried about their children’s futures, says Patrick Dwyer, managing director at Miami-based boutique wealth management and planning company Aligned by NewEdge Wealth.
Dwyer’s ultra-wealthy clients — primarily people who range in net worth from $100 million to over $1 billion — are specifically concerned that their kids, primarily between 22 and 35 years old, won’t be able to sustain careers in traditionally stable and lucrative industries like technology, law and medicine, he says.
The U.S. job market is currently tough for young people in general, regardless of personal or family income. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has steadily grown for three years, reaching 9.7% in September 2025, according to Federal Reserve Data. Last year was the weakest hiring year in the U.S. since 2009, excluding the pandemic-affected year of 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The job market stress has reached the ultra-wealthy, says Dwyer, even as many of them likely have enough money to cover their kids’ living expenses for many years. “[They’re] realizing that if they don’t pass on more meaningful wealth to their children, or their children are not able to accumulate wealth … their kids could have [less] agency over their lives than they did,” he says.
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To be clear, the difficult hiring market likely doesn’t signify a major threat to the ultra-wealthy’s financial status. Most people with such a high net worth aren’t in danger of losing their homes or canceling lavish vacations, says Citizens Wealth chief investment officer Michael Hans, who defines ultra-high net worth as between $10 million and $20 million. But the rich typically want to spend their money efficiently and keep their children from having to make lifestyle tradeoffs, Hans says.
Some workplace experts point to artificial intelligence as a potential culprit for the tight job market. Others say a wider form of economic uncertainty, including growing costs of living and home ownership, is causing established workers to cling to their jobs, reducing opportunities for younger workforce entrants.
“Folks are kind of just sitting still,” Nich Tremper, a senior economist for payroll and HR platform Gusto, told CNBC Make It on Dec. 8. “They’re not looking for new roles, they’re not leaving their current roles. Without those new jobs available, it’s hard for an entry-level employee to get their foot in the door and start their career.”
And without any concrete answers or ironclad predictions about the labor economy’s future — nobody actually knows how many jobs AI will replace, or when, for example — some billionaires are proactively reconsidering how they guide their children in a turbulent job market, Dwyer says.
The risky endeavor some ultra-wealthy parents are recommending to their kids
Many of Dwyer’s clients followed a specific path to become ultra-wealthy, he says: They went to competitive schools, landed internships at prestigious companies and moved up the career ladder by leveraging connections over time. Today, lots of them — at least, in Dwyer’s estimation — fear that their children won’t live better or wealthier lives by comparison.
“[Our clients] are recognizing this is not the same game they had to play,” he says, adding: “Families have to rethink … what it means to support their children. And we’re not talking about spoiling your kids. We’re talking about: What if your kid needs retraining at 33?”
One result: Rather than pushing their kids toward a similar career trajectory, Dwyer’s clients are increasingly encouraging, and in some cases paying for, their children start their own companies in emerging industries and embrace entrepreneurship in their 20s and 30s, he says.
Entrepreneurship is often considered a risky endeavor with low pay, intense working hours and a high failure rate, at least in the early years of starting a business. Small-business advocates typically advise against entrepreneurship as a solution for career instability or the desire for a steady income.
But children from ultra-wealthy families have enough of a financial safety net to launch and fail at multiple startups, and — if they learn enough from those experiences — eventually build a successful one, Dwyer notes. Some of them specifically want their kids to develop a strong work ethic and grow to embody traits like resilience and adaptability that are increasingly important in the modern workforce, says Dwyer.
“These young entrepreneurs, if you sit and talk to these 25- or 26-year-olds, they understand marketing. They understand finance. They understand how to build a business,” Dwyer says. It’s really something that is worthwhile … and I think they will be increasingly sought after in the marketplace.”
Update: This story has been corrected to reflect that Michael Hans is chief investment officer at Citizens Wealth. It has also been updated to clarify that Hans defines ultra-high net worth as between $10 million and $20 million.
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