Patrick Dwyer, managing director of Miami-based boutique wealth management and planning firm Aligned by NewEdge Wealth, said even billionaires worry about their children’s futures.
Mr. Dwyer says his clients, the ultra-high-net-worth individuals (mainly those with net worths of $100 million to $1 billion or more), are especially concerned that their children, primarily between the ages of 22 and 35, are unable to maintain careers in traditionally stable and lucrative industries such as technology, law and medicine.
The U.S. job market is currently challenging for young people in general, regardless of individual or family income. The unemployment rate for new graduates has steadily increased over the past three years, reaching 9.7% in September 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve Board. Last year was the weakest year for employment in the United States since 2009, excluding the pandemic-hit 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Dwyer said job market stress is also hitting the ultra-wealthy, many of whom are likely to have enough money to cover their children’s living expenses for many years. “[They]are realizing that if they don’t pass on more meaningful wealth to their children, or if they don’t accumulate wealth, their children may have (less) agency over their lives than they did,” he says.
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To be clear, job market difficulties do not seem to represent a major threat to the financial health of the ultra-wealthy. Michael Hans, chief investment officer at Citizens Wealth, who defines the ultra-high net worth as someone with $10 million to $20 million, said most of these people are not at risk of losing their homes or canceling luxury vacations. But wealthy people typically want to use their money efficiently so their children don’t have to sacrifice their lifestyle, Hans says.
Some workplace experts point to artificial intelligence as a potential cause of the tight job market. Some say widespread economic uncertainty, including rising costs of living and homeownership, is causing existing workers to hang on to their jobs and reducing opportunities for young people to enter the workforce.
“People are kind of sitting still,” Niche Tremper, senior economist at payroll and HR platform Gusto, told CNBC Make It on Dec. 8. “They’re not looking for a new role, they’re not leaving their current role. Without a new job, it’s hard for entry-level employees to get their foot in the door and start their career.”
And while there are no concrete answers or ironclad predictions about the future of the labor economy—no one really knows how many jobs will be replaced by AI, or when, for example—Dwyer says some billionaires are actively rethinking how to guide their children through a turbulent job market.
Risky endeavors some ultra-wealthy parents encourage their children to take
Many of Mr. Dwyer’s clients followed a particular path to becoming ultra-wealthy, he said. They attended competitive schools, landed internships at big-name companies, and took time to leverage their connections to move up the career ladder. Today, many of them – at least in Dwyer’s estimation – fear that their children will not have a better, wealthier life by comparison.
“[Clients]recognize that this is not a game they had to play,” he said, adding, “Families need to rethink what it means to support their children. And we’re not talking about coddling a child. What we’re talking about is what to do when your child is 33 and needs retraining.”
One result, Dwyer says, is that rather than setting his children on similar career trajectories, Dwyer’s clients are increasingly encouraging, and in some cases paying for, their children to start their own companies in emerging industries and embrace entrepreneurship in their 20s and 30s.
Entrepreneurship, at least in the early stages of starting a business, is considered a risky endeavor with low pay, long hours, and high failure rates. Small business advocates typically advise against starting a business as a solution to career instability or the desire for stable income.
But Dwyer points out that children from ultra-wealthy families have enough of a financial safety net to start and fail multiple startups, and if they learn enough from their experiences, they can ultimately build successful companies. Some of them especially want their children to develop a strong work ethic and grow up to embody traits such as resilience and adaptability that are increasingly important in the modern workforce, Dwyer said.
“If you sit down and talk to young entrepreneurs, 25-, 26-year-olds, they understand marketing. They understand finance. They understand how to build a business,” Dwyer said. I think that’s something that’s really valuable and will become more and more sought after in the market. ”
Update: This article has been corrected to reflect that Michael Hans is the chief investment officer of Citizens Wealth. Also updated to clarify that Hans defines ultra-high net worth as between $10 million and $20 million.
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