The media has spent months wondering why young people have gravitated towards right and left-wing populists. Many pundits claim that the center of political gravity has shifted. However, a new study by Price Waterhouse Cooper showed that the populist appeal may exist because Gen Y is overly stressed about money.
PwC reported on Thursday that millennials are far more stressed about their current economic situation than Gen X or Baby Boomers, mostly due to their student loan debt.
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Over 40 percent of millennials have student loans, and nearly 80 percent said that their loans are having a “moderate to significant impact on their ability to meet their financial goals.”
The differences between employees with student loan debt and those without it are vast. A millennial with student loan debt is nearly twice as stressed at work, 35 percent less likely to have saved $50,000 or more, nearly twice as likely to use a credit card to pay monthly expenses, and twice as likely to have a difficult time paying monthly household expenses.
If conservatives want to stop millions of millennials from flocking to Bernie Sanders, then they need to address the cause of student loan debt.
