It sounds like a dark joke, but it’s backed by research: more millennials say they fear credit card debt than dying. For many in this generation, the thought of carrying a mountain of high-interest debt is more terrifying than their own mortality. That’s not just anxiety. It’s a deeply rational response to a financial system that feels rigged against them.
Unlike the generations before them, millennials came of age during economic chaos: the 2008 recession, skyrocketing college costs, wage stagnation, and now the lingering fallout of a pandemic and inflation. They’ve watched traditional financial advice fail in real-time. So when a credit card bill arrives, it doesn’t just represent a payment. It represents a trap.
