How Rich Millennials Created a New Path to Wealth

WSJ Your Money Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Business News

3.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

In the past, Americans built wealth via traditionally high-paying professions. But these days, millennials are carving out their own paths to financial security. Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Pinsker joins host Julia Carpenter to discuss how new industries and jobs are helping some — and leaving others lagging behind. 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	Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, May 7th.
0:06.0	I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal.
0:10.0	Millennials are finally getting rich, but their newfound wealth looks a little different than it did for baby boomers and other previous generations.
0:22.6	Some industries have just really pulled away from others in terms of pay. If you look at
0:27.3	millennials who are software developers or financial analysts, those people are roughly four times
0:32.8	as likely as any given millennial to be in their generation's top 5% of households by income.
0:39.0	And millennial workers like Ryan Hoffs say they're already feeling the effects of this tectonic
0:44.3	shift. It really feels as though there's a bimodal distribution, if you will, within the
0:51.5	millennial generation of folks who are doing very, very, very well,
0:56.8	and then folks who rightfully worked very hard, but still can't quite find ways to get ahead
1:03.9	due to student loans, increased real estate values, interest rates, and things like that.
1:09.6	Where and when they started their careers determined so much about millennial workers and their
1:15.6	future. We'll talk more with Ryan and with Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Pinsker
1:20.6	about where this generation goes next. That's after the break. does. Take the one-minute risk test today at do I have prediabetes.org. Brought to you by the
1:44.8	ad council and its pre-diabetes awareness partners. Millennials aren't broke anymore. Well, some of them.
1:57.5	The top 5% of millennial earners are doing better than even baby boomers were at similar
2:02.4	ages. But what does that mean for everyone else? Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Pinsker
2:08.0	joins us to talk more. Joe, you're a millennial, I'm a millennial. What's happening to us?
2:15.2	Although millennials have this reputation of struggling financially, they've
2:19.1	actually in the 2020s really turned things around. Millennials are now on average, wealthier,
2:25.2	even adjusting for inflation than baby boomers and Gen Xers were. And for this latest story I was
2:31.1	working on, I was looking at millennial high earners. And again, they're making more money than, as you said, high earning baby boomers were
	...

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