Since the past generation, there has been a lot of ink that has been spilled about the grave financial situation of the millennials. As per statistics, this generation is debt-laden, underemployed, and has saved way less money as compared to what the Baby Boomer parents saved at the same age. Articles that were previously written on the financial woes of the young generation have always reiterated the fact that millennials are lazy and they’re narcissists who have brought the issues themselves by not being hard-working, ambitious, and independent.
If you’re a millennial who is reading this post, you must be eager to cross-check whether the problems that you’re facing are similar to that of others. Well, this is why we list down a few fiscal challenges faced by millennials.
The income of millennials is stagnant enough
The recession of 2008 not only hit millennials the hardest but recovery hasn’t benefitted them at all. Research reveals that the millennials are earning at least 20% less than both Generation Xers and Baby boomers. For the young generation, inflation-adjusted wages were falling a long time before the recession and this has lead to the deterioration of well-paying jobs and less participation of males.
Millennials are heavily saddled with debt
If you are aware of the bigger picture, you would know that the education costs have skyrocketed like never before and millennials are starting as adults being the most heavily-debted generation. Not only are the graduates saddled with hefty amounts of student loan debt but they are also having enough amounts on their credit cards. Student loan debt has the power of dragging down the entire millennial generation and education debt is perhaps the biggest debt among the generation.
The majority of millennials are economically dependent on their parents
Despite being in their 20s and 30s, the millennials still rely heavily on the income of their parents for meeting their daily necessities. Recent Pew Research data showed that increasingly large numbers of young adults aged between 18 and 35 (including 40% of young men) are living on the income of their parents and this figure is currently the highest since the 1940s.
Millennials are financially too fragile and vulnerable
Due to their stagnant income and huge loads of debt, many millennials still don’t have an emergency cushion to fall back on. As per the Washington post-survey, 67% of millennials would have extreme difficulty in being able to cover a sudden expense of even $500. PWC, in another survey, found out that 35% of millennials regularly overdraw from their checking accounts just because they’re falling short from one paycheck to another. Moreover, since most of them rely on the income of their parents, they turn to alternative sources like pawn shops and payday loans to meet their unpredicted expenses.
Keeping in mind the daunting signs mentioned above, while some millennials have embraced pessimism and hopelessness, some others have taken this in a positive sense. They are trying their best to cope up with such challenges in their best ways possible.
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