Unlike Peter Pan, millennials and Gen Zers would like to grow up. But today’s high cost of living has made these younger generations go from lost boys to lost adults, as many of them say it’s preventing them from becoming self-sufficient. Despite the long-held narrative that they're relying on their parents because they're spending frivolously on brunch and travel, a majority of them (68%) report in an Experian survey that the state of the economy is “hurting their ability to be a financially independent adult." These younger generations are facing more of an uphill battle when it comes to building wealth and affording the same things their parents could, thanks to the difficult set of cards the economy has dealt them.
Millennials graduated into the Great Recession and its rocky aftermath, while Gen Z got their little sister version of an economic plight with the shorter-lived Coronavirus recession. Both are shouldering the burden of massive student loan debt, reckoning with a bad housing market as first-time homebuyers, and facing true inflation for the first time in their lives. No wonder so many lack confidence they’ll be able to afford their dream future.
