Millennials are struggling for financial independence.zhang bo
I began looking at the financial challenges faced by millennials in a column on how young adults have it harder than I did when I was their age. Four years after that column was written, we finally seem to be making some headway in recognizing the troubles that people in their 20s and 30s are having in achieving financial independence.
Most importantly, the recently announced enhancement of the Canada Pension Plan was sold in large part as a way to help the many young adults who do not have company pensions. We also have some fresh voices documenting the problems faced by millennials. I talked to a financial adviser to well-off families for my Carrick on Money video series recently and she said that many parents are helping their adult kids with money because they need the assistance. It's not because parents are soft, or the kids are lazy. Here's some data on millennial incomes to back up this point.
These numbers are presented in an article written by two millennial academics at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. They were motivated to write the piece by the controversial story, presented in this newsletter last week, of a well-off millennial who lives at home so he can afford to travel and indulge himself. "We took a quick look at publicly available data to determine whether our generation is living at home in order to live large," they write. "As it turns out, the suggestion is wildly misplaced."
Finally, some advice for millennials who are moving back home: consider the financial burden on your parents.
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Rob Carrick