Gen Z & the Debt Trap, Part 1: A Wounded Wallet

WSJ Your Money Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Business News

3.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the first episode of our three part-series “Gen Z & the Debt Trap,” we explore a Credit Karma report that found Gen Z is accumulating debt faster than any other generation. To learn more, we’ll meet Kyle Dillon, a 22-year-old Gen Zer who after leaving home to pursue higher education, accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debt. We also look at a TransUnion study to see how Gen Zers’ paychecks can’t keep up with inflation, creating dependency on using credit cards. Plus, the St. Louis Federal Reserve shares a surprising advantage Gen Z has over other generations. Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	O. C.I. is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs.
0:06.0	Do more and spend less like Uber 8 by 8 and Databrics Mosaic.
0:11.0	Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com
0:14.4	slash Wall Street. I owe a lot of money. Well to me it feels like a lot. Sometimes I can't even sleep because of it.
0:29.3	Thousands of dollars in student loan debt just feels like trying to swim in quicksand.
0:34.0	I can only go down.
0:36.4	I'm Tadde Louisa de Vauval for the Wall Street Journal and I'm not alone and feeling
0:41.5	this way.
0:49.0	Every three months, Intuit Credit Karma, a free online financial service that provides users with credit scores, credit reports, and other services releases a report about the current state of debt and
0:55.4	credit through a study of 88.5 million people from its U.S. member base.
1:01.4	And each report that that held across generations stacked up against each other for comparison and broken down.
1:08.0	And at first glance, Gen X, the generation born between 1965 and 1980, holds the most debt.
1:16.5	And that makes sense.
1:17.5	The youngest are in their mid 40s and the eldest are reaching their 60s.
1:21.8	They've had decades of financial experience with bigger
1:24.5	expenses like mortgages, car payments, and many are putting their kids through
1:29.1	school. But when it comes to accumulating that quickly, it's young people like me, along with the rest of
1:36.9	Gen Z that are racking up debt the fastest.
1:41.9	Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Ziers range from 12 to 27 years old.
1:48.0	For now, we'll be focusing on Gen Ziers who are 18 and over, since they qualify for loans and credit cards.
1:55.2	Despite their short financial experience, I didn't realize just how fast my generation
2:00.1	was racking up debt and I was shocked so I reached out to Credit
	...

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