> Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income.
They oversampled in major markets where they work and in high-net-worth populations (who they service), but their claims are for the overall US adult population.
Oversampling like this is pretty routine in survey research. It improves the precision of any subgroup analyses you might want to do, and, to a first approximation, it doesn’t tend to bias the weighted overall-population claims in one direction or another.
I think about it like Google Earth or something. I happen to have much-higher-res imagery of London than of the Cotswolds. That doesn’t mean my view, when zoomed out to “the whole United Kingdom,” is necessarily misleading. It does mean I can additionally make more detailed claims about Piccadilly Circus than about the sheep fields or whatever.
I’ve certainly seen trust fund kids who’s success is anchored on “daddy gave me a sweet job at his company” and others who’d be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for the constant money poured into the legal system by their parents.
Q2630. Do you currently consider yourself financially independent?
Yes: 72% No: 28%
Q2634. How financially independent do you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)?
Fully independent: 44% Mostly independent: 17% Somewhat dependent: 17% Fully dependent: 8% Not applicable: 14%
Then they report 17+17+8=42 = "42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support"
[1] https://news.northwesternmutual.com/download/2026+P%26P+Mark...
> Included in this overall total is a sample of 816 High-Net-Worth
Looks like about 1/5 are in the trust fund kid category.