Millennials “paid a price” for the Great Recession, and as a result are not as financially “well off” as previous generations were at the same age, according to a new Federal Reserve study.
Millennials — identified in the study as those born from 1981 to 1997 — “are less well off than members of earlier generations when they were young, with lower earnings, fewer assets and less wealth,” according to the study released this month.
The study claims that the the Great Recession shaped millennials’ attitudes toward finance, perhaps for their lives. The scarring effects of the crisis may be “more permanent for millennials than for members of generations that were more established in their careers and lives at that time,” according to the report.
[Related: Millennial homelessness is on the rise]
That isn’t certain yet, and the study acknowledged that “it remains to be seen” whether millennials’ experience living through the Great Recession will have a permanent impact on their preferences.
And for spending, specifically, the study concludes that millennials’ consumption preferences aren’t different from those of previous generations despite differences in overall wealth.
The study examined the finances of Generation X, baby boomers, the silent generation, and the greatest generation and was conducted by Christopher Kurz, Geng Li, and Daniel J. Vine.
