A new study published by Facebook provides some insight into the financial attitudes, opinions and behavior of the Millennial generation. Facebook surveyed more than 27,000 people for its report and collected anonymous data from the Facebook conversations of more than 70 million users aged 21-34. The most tech-savvy and highly-educated generation ever is certainly changing the financial world, but Facebook found that it hasn’t necessarily been smooth for many Millennials.
The numbers
According to the report, Millennials’ top financial priority is paying down debt (43%) followed closely by saving for the future (38%). Debt is a recurring theme for Millennials, and nearly half (46%) list becoming debt-free as their top indicator of success. Outside of eliminating debt, the next two biggest financial goals are owning a home (21%) and being able to retire (13%).
Another byproduct of Millennial debt is that many young professionals are not investing as much as they should. At a time in their lives when investing could be most advantageous, Millennials are 1.6 times more likely to have no financial investments than Gen Xers/Boomers. By far the most common explanation for this trend is that Millennials don’t feel they have enough money for investments (54%), with lack of investing knowledge (24%) a distant second.
Perhaps the most troubling insight in the survey is that many Millennials who are struggling financially don’t have a clear path forward. Although Facebook reports that an encouraging 86% of Millennials put money away each month, 53% of those surveyed have no financial plan or are unsure if they have one. More than half (52%) of these financially aimless Millennials without a long-term plan report that they don’t even know how they would go about creating a plan in the first place.
Distrust of banks
Perhaps it’s not surprising that, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, a number of Millennials who witnessed firsthand how irresponsible behavior by bankers nearly collapsed the U.S. economy now distrust…
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