Gen X: Loaded and Lost
- Ruth
- Aug 11
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 14
With fat wallets but thin on advice, Gen X are the most influential and underserved financial market everyone's ignoring.
Generation X (born 1965–1980) now holds 23.5% of global spending power, more than Boomers or Millennials. They’re running companies, inheriting trillions, and quietly steering culture. Yet when it comes to targeted financial advice? Eerily silent.
This is the paradox: the richest midlife cohort in history, living at peak earning years, is also the most financially under-supported. And that’s a very expensive oversight.
Wealth & Influence: Gen X holds a major share of global spending and is on track to become one of the wealthiest generations ever, yet advertising doesn’t reflect this.
The Silent Oversight: Only 5% of influencer budgets target a generation that controls nearly a quarter of global spending and possesses growing wealth.
Missed Emotional Connection: With just 13% feeling represented, brands are failing to resonate with a key spending demographic.
From Forgotten to In Control
Leeds Building Society calls them 'forgotten no more', a generation stepping into leadership. Three-quarters of UK cabinet ministers, four-fifths of FTSE 100 CEOs, and the majority of senior decision-makers now belong to Gen X. They’re also first in line for the Great Wealth Transfer, expected to bring them $70 trillion globally..
Culturally, they’ve moved from slacker-era grunge to midlife on their own terms. They’re not ageing quietly; they’re reshaping midlife identity, rejecting ageist stereotypes, and embracing reinvention. But financially? They’re improvising.
The Advice Black Hole
Despite their power and visibility, only 27% of Gen X-ers use a financial adviser, compared to 37% of Baby Boomers and 31% of Millennials (source). Nearly half have no retirement plan at all. Many are still financially recovering from the pandemic (62%), hit by the 2008 crash, and squeezed between dependent children (29% support adult kids) and ageing parents.
The move from gold-plated pensions to DIY pots has left Gen X dangerously exposed and it shows:
In other words, Gen X have enormous spending capacity and enormous financial anxiety. And no one talking directly to them.
Why They’re Different
Gen X came of age analogue, adapted to digital, and built careers in a world before LinkedIn coaching and robo-advisors. They value independence, but it’s paired with deep scepticism of authority. They don’t want cookie-cutter advice wrapped in Millennial-speak, they want truth, clarity, and tools they can trust.
Brands miss the mark because they’re chasing youth culture. Only 5% of influencer marketing spend targets Gen X, despite their high social media engagement (fastest-growing TikTok demo). Financial services are even more absent.
The Market Gap
For financial services, this is a lucrative blind spot. There's got a cohort with:
High, stable incomes
Cultural influence
Legacy-driving intent (“What will I leave behind?”)
A proven willingness to invest in solutions that work
But they’re navigating major transitions; career pivots, semi-retirement, inheritance planning, and doing it largely alone.
The bottom line: Gen X isn’t just the 'forgotten middle child' of finance, they’re the most valuable unsold market in the sector today. Whoever closes their advice gap first won’t just win customers. They’ll win a generation.
Gen X, the affluent yet ignored demographic is under the spotlight with a wave of events introducing the culture that shaped them to new generations.
