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70% of Millennials Are Living Paycheck to Paycheck: Survey:
Millennials' wallets are rather skimpy.
Seventy percent of the generation said they're living paycheck to paycheck, according to a survey by PYMNTS and LendingClub, which analyzed economic data and census-balanced surveys of over 28,000 Americans. It found that about 54% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, but millennials had the biggest broke energy.
By contrast, 40% of baby boomers and seniors said they live paycheck to paycheck, the least of any generation. Living paycheck to paycheck reflects economic needs and wants just as much, if not more than, incomes or wealth levels, according to the report. Age and family status also factor in greatly. This explains why millennials, who turn ages 25 to 40 this year, are struggling.
[...] It doesn't help that millennials have faced one economic challenge after another since the oldest of them graduated into the dismal job market of the 2008 financial crisis. A dozen years later, many are still grappling with the lingering effects of The Great Recession, struggling to build wealth while trying to afford soaring costs for things like housing and healthcare and shouldering the lion's share of America's student-loan debt.
The pandemic threw yet another wrench into their plans by giving them their second recession and second housing crisis before the age of 40. The report acknowledges that the pandemic played a major role in that stretched thin feeling.
[...] It seems, then, that it's a combination of external economic circumstances, a precarious life stage, and some spending habits that are leaving millennials feeling strapped for cash.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @02:30PM (1 child)
I'm Gen X. I have five younger siblings, one other Gen X and four Milennials. The only ones with high end smart phones received them as gifts. All five use pay-as-you-go phone service. Only one has a gaming console, he got that as a gift. None have paid television service. None take vacations. None have SUVs or pickup trucks, none bought their car new, three have used cars with no payments. All four Millennials are living paycheck to paycheck, all five are buried in student loans.
I'm Gen X. I'm paying $90 per month for a combination of streaming services, $120 per month for family cell service, we have a Playstation, and my family members all have refurbished top-of-the-line smartphones. We have a 55 inch UHD TV that was $400 when we bought it. It sounds extravagant, doesn't it? Here's the thing: I spend over $1,500 a month on health care between insurance and copays. I spend $2,500 a month on the mortgage and utilities, and our house isn't that big. Ten years ago I was spending $1,500 a month on daycare. Twenty years ago I didn't have daycare costs but I was spending $800 a month on student loans. Now I'm not covering daycare or my student loans, but next year my oldest starts college.
So you can cut my streaming services, you can refund me the money for my family's phones and cancel our phone services, you can cancel my twice-a-month family dinner out, you can cancel my six family trips to the movies a year - and you're going to save me much less than a month of my regular living expenses. For the most part, it's not extravagance that's the problem. Health care, mortgages, and student loans are just too damn expensive. When my Boomer dad went to college he worked third shift in a factory and took classes during the day, and the factory income let him pay his own rent, pay cash for a new car, and pay cash for his tuition. Can you imagine doing that today? That's the difference between 1971 and 2021.
Now, vehicle purchases are different. People routinely overspend there. But if you read other headlines, Millennials aren't nearly the car fans that Gen X and Boomers are. People are calling it a cultural shift, but I guaran-fucking-tee it's not some change in interests and ideals. It's just the realization by most Millennials that after they pay the rent and the medical bills the only Mustangs and Escalades they can afford is in the Walmart toy section.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:43PM
Retirement planning: Millennials are stashing money away earlier than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers [usatoday.com]
Millennials Now Saving More Money Than Their Parents According to Zip [prnewswire.com]
Are Millennials the Greatest Generation of Savers? [synchronybank.com]