Why the Wealth Gap Is Shrinking for Some Millennials, But Not All
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What economic challenges labeled millennials a 'lost generation'?
Here's your Money Briefing for Tuesday, March 30th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Researchers studying Americans' personal finances have been particularly concerned about millennials, the generation born between roughly 1981 and 1996. This group reached adulthood in the wake of the last financial crisis, and that contributed to a wealth gap between them and their elders. But now data is showing that gap is closing.
Homeownership is really the way that millennials are building wealth. Homes are Americans' biggest asset in general. And what these researchers have found is that Older millennials are finally starting to own homes at the rate that their parents did at their age, and that's really good news for their wealth.
But the wealth gap isn't closing for all millennials. Coming up, our reporter Rachel Louise Enzine will go through the numbers and explain why some millennials have lost ground. That's after the break.
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Between the 2008 financial crisis and the rising cost of higher education, millennials have had a harder time building up wealth than most earlier generations. But more recently, things are starting to look up for them. Our reporter Rachel Louise Ensign has been looking into this since she joins us now. Rachel, thanks for being with us.
Thanks for having me.
So, Rachel, you know, we hear a lot about millennials and their spending habits and their struggles accumulating wealth. But why is that generation so important to people that track these kinds of finances?
Well, I mean, millennials are an enormous generation just in numbers. So it's a huge demographic that matters to, for instance, any company, any bank trying to sell products to people or retailer trying to do the same. And I think what's really interesting about millennials through this lens is that for so long, millennials were sort of just seen as like the angsty 20 something in the workplace who got a degree in knitting and took on a bunch of student loan debt to do that but in reality millennials are actually getting pretty close to middle age on the upper end oldest millennials are 40 now and you know this is starting to look at hey these aren't just all college kids or kids just out of college who have no money
What do their finances look like? What are they like as homebuyers? And where are they in terms of wealth? And I mean, one of the things that really shows the importance of millennials is just been the whole Robin Hood thing. And obviously, it's not all millennials on Robin Hood, but just the incredible interest in trading and investing. I mean, many of those people are in this age group, and it just shows that They do have extra money and they are interested in putting it to work and hoping for a big payoff, which is how many people do use Robinhood.
And, you know, for generations, Rachel, homeownership was the cornerstone of building wealth. Has that changed with millennials?
So, I mean, it remains the same as it was for prior generations.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:30
2
What economic challenges labeled millennials a 'lost generation'?
0:30–4:48
3
How is homeownership driving wealth recovery for older millennials?
4:48–5:50
4
What Federal Reserve data shows the wealth gap narrowing for some millennials?
5:50–10:08
5
How much has the millennial wealth gap changed since 2016?
10:08–10:34
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from WSJ Your Money Briefing
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