> If getting a million dollars wouldn't affect how much money you can leave your kids, you already have generational wealth.

Well said.

Where I live, one million dollars would allow me to pay off my house, open healthily sized investment accounts for my kids, pad my investment account, setup a trust and, overall, set my family up for a comfortable life in the future. I don't see how that isn't generational wealth.

Generational wealth generally is used to mean something like you and at least your children can live very comfortably off of investment income for the rest of your lives, I.e. none of you have to work for a living. That’s why sibling’s def of 1.5-5m per child is much closer to the commonly understood meaning.

We can debate “live comfortably” if you want, but no 4.5 people are doing that from the investment proceeds of 1m.

What you are describing is kind of more like social mobility.

The commonly accepted definition of generational wealth ranges from around 1.5 to 5 million per child.

Generational wealth is generally used to describe not just a comfortable personal retirement but your children and their children and so on never needing to work if they are remotely responsible with the money.

> If getting a million dollars wouldn't affect how much money you can leave your kids, you already have generational wealth.

Generational wealth is definitely not "affect[ing] how much money you can leave your kids." That's an equivocation - if you're leaving your kids a dollar, another dollar will "affect how much money you can leave your kids."

edit: you need a million dollars to securely retire at all, and that's if your parents, kids, or you don't get sick. If they do, a million is not only not "generational wealth" but it may not even last you three years.