By many measures, millennials are doing considerably well financially. Still, fewer younger adults are thinking about retiring in the traditional sense one day.
“Retirement is becoming more deprioritized,” said Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo.
“Ten or 15 years ago that was always the number one goal,” he said. Now, “actually living one’s life in the moment is a bigger priority.”
Although this cohort is very focused on building wealth, “the end game might not be no longer working and sitting on my Adirondack chair,” he said. “That just might not be it.”
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More than one-third, or 37%, of Americans want a retirement that looks different from previous generations, according to a 2024 report from Edelman Financial Engines.
Most say that means a more active and adventurous lifestyle. And 32% say they will never be able to “fully” retire, the report found.
“This contrasts sharply with retirement stereotypes of the past, where stability and relaxation were the primary goals,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the median wealth of younger millennials and older Gen Zers — or those born in the 1990s — “more than quadrupled” in recent years, according to an analysis of 2022 data by the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
The number of millennials with seven-figure retirement balances also jumped 400% as of the third quarter of 2024, compared to a year earlier, according to data from Fidelity Investments prepared for CNBC.
Compared to other generations, millennials are also more likely to say that their income went up over the last few months and that they expect their earnings potential to increase again in the year ahead, another report by TransUnion found.
Collectively, millennials are now worth about $15.95 trillion, up from $3.94 trillion five years earlier, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data as of the third quarter of 2024.
But a lot has changed for younger generations, too, said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School.
What assets millennials have on hand and their relative financial stability “is determined by how they shape up against immediate needs — such as housing down payments or emergency medical payments — and their capacity to generate income to replace salaries and wages in retirement amidst the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions, or the elimination of workplace pensions all together,” House said.
Most younger adults are no longer getting pensions of any kind, so individuals who enter retirement age are now more dependent on personal savings and Social Security, he said.
‘People are really feeling the cash crunch’
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“There are a lot of financial priorities that we are all trying to reach simultaneously,” said Sophia Bera Daigle, founder and CEO of Gen Y Planning, a financial planning firm for millennials.
Many millennials must contend with hefty student loan balances, mortgages, car payments and child care costs in addition to saving for retirement or future college costs, she said.
“People are really feeling the cash crunch in their 30s to 40s,” said Bera Daigle, a certified financial planner and a member of CNBC’s Advisor Council. “Their net worth is going up but they don’t feel like they are getting ahead.”
That has also contributed to changing views on retirement for millennials, she said.
“When I got into this business, retirement was about quitting the grind … playing golf,” Bera Daigle said.
Now, “it’s really more about flexibility,” she added. “We don’t know what retirement will look like in 20 years… there’s a lot more emphasis on choosing the work they want to do in their 60s.”
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