Millennials and Gen Z are a lot of things, but one thing they almost definitely are is economically worse-off than their parents. But you can give them a leg-up with their eventual inheritance, right? Not if you take the words of David Koch to heart, who says that those damn kids just have to work it out for themselves, and that you don't owe them a damn thing.

You know Koch from his longtime stint as host of the Channel Seven breakfast program Sunrise. Dubbed "Kochie" to liven him up a bit, David James Koch AM had a storied financial journalism career before taking his spot on that comfy sofa for a 20+ year stint.

Koch has long styled himself as a straight shooter on money issues, but his latest advice to parents isn’t pulling any punches.

He argues that millennials and Gen Z (often caricatured as entitled or “soft”) need to stand on their own two feet. Forget about soft landings or family bailouts. According to Koch, parents have done their job by raising their kids and giving them a start. Beyond that, it’s up to the next generation to build their own wealth, no matter how much tougher the economic environment has become.

From his piece:

"Nobody wants to see their children struggle. But I’m a little concerned that guilt ridden Baby Boomer parents could end up putting their retirement lifestyles at risk, by digging a little too deep."

"It’s extremely generous, but personally I don't think you owe your kids any sort of inheritance."

Thanks, David! I don't know about you but I'd be shifting a little nervously in my seat if I were one of Koch's four kids. Especially considering their Dad's ascent into the upper tax brackets over recent years. Not only did he spend 21 years on the set of Sunrise (with a few other shows on Seven here and there), but he recently sold his own financial content house - Pinstripe Media - for what can only be assumed was a tidy yet undisclosed sum before taking up a job as head numbers man/spruiker-in-chief for comparison site Compare The Market, You've seen their ads, surely. All the money they save by animating irritating meerkats spruiking insurance seems to have gone to pay for their new, big-time economic director, David Koch.

This message lands at a time when young people face a radically different set of financial headwinds than their parents did: ballooning property prices, flat wage growth, casualised work, and record student debt. For many families, the old path of study hard, get a job, buy a house is lying on the floor in pieces.

I'm fascinated he mentions boomer "guilt" in this piece as a reason that some older Australians might want to dig a little deeper for their kids. I think almost every boomer knows in their bones that they're leaving their kids and their kids' kids in a bit of a hole.

The numbers are hard to ignore. When boomers were entering adulthood in the late 1970's, wages were rising faster in real terms, home ownership was realistically achievable on a single income, and house‑price‑to‑income ratios were a fraction of what they are today. A young worker could expect strong wage indexation, a stable job market and a deposit hurdle that felt tough but possible.

Roll forward to 2025 and the story flips.

Wages crawl along at about one per cent above inflation, housing sits at nine or ten times the average income in major cities, and home ownership among thirty‑somethings has fallen from the mid‑sixties percent range in the seventies to about fifty percent now. Wealth is increasingly concentrated among older Australians, while younger Australians face higher rents, higher debts, slower wage growth and a far narrower path into the wealth‑building machinery of housing.

Boomers didn’t design all these settings, but they benefited enormously from them on the way up, and for decades Australian policy has continued to reward asset‑holders over asset‑seekers. That is the quiet source of the guilt Koch gestures toward. It’s the uneasy recognition that opportunities once taken for granted have been sealed off behind them, and that the next generation is being asked to climb a ladder their parents already pulled up.

Yet, despite the data (of which he's clearly familiar with) Koch’s feelings here are pretty clear: inheritance shouldn’t be seen as a safety net or a delayed down payment on adult life. If anything, he frames it as a bonus, not a right. His stance reflects a broader debate about generational responsibility and the limits of parental support, especially as cost-of-living pressures bite harder than ever.

Honestly? I don't disagree with him on his core point. You can't take it with you as they say, but you certainly don't have to give your kids a red cent on your way out. It's just a little hard to hear someone like Kochie say the quiet part so, so loud after receiving so much from a system that he trusts still exists for his kids.