Millennials are more than $100K in debt, most not from mortgages: report (2024)

FAQs

What is the largest source of debt for the average millennial? ›

Millennial Debt

The average mortgage balance for Millennials (ages 27 to 42) is the highest among all age groups. This tracks, given that homeowners in this cohort would likely have purchased their home more recently and be closer to the beginning of their amortization period than older homeowners.

King said millennials' purchasing preferences and the soaring cost of living has led many into "a vicious cycle of taking on more debt." Many were "forced" to rely on credit cards and loans to meet their needs, adding to their "crippling debt pile."

What percentage of federal student loan debt is from borrowers who owe more than $100,000? Though they hold a big share of total student debt, six-figure borrowers represent less than 10 percent of all borrowers. Such massive loan balances are not the norm.

Survey: Gen X Holds the Most Credit Card Debt, on Average; Gen Z Holds the Least. Americans collectively owe over $1 trillion in credit card debt, with members of Generation X, on average, owing the most and Gen Zers owing the least, CNBC.com Make It reported.

Generation Z adults—individuals who are between 18 and 25 years old—prove to be more financially sophisticated than any previous generation was at their age, according to The 2022 Investopedia Financial Literacy Survey. But they also have the most to learn.

Millennials stand to become the richest generation in history, after $90 trillion wealth transfer. Millennials are set to inherit as much as $90 trillion in assets before 2044, a new report shows.

Although that gap has narrowed significantly — the Fed later updated its research with data through 2019, finding Millennials were just 11% below wealth expectations — older Millennials also had the highest debt burden of any demographic group, making them particularly vulnerable to economic shocks. Like a pandemic.

They seek credit less often

The Federal Reserve notes that student loan balances have reached their highest levels in history. This high debt burden understandably makes millennials hesitant to seek out additional debt.

What is the average salary for a millennial? ›

The average Millennial salary is about $47,034, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average Millennial household makes $69,000 a year, according to the Pew Research Center.

Only 10 percent of survey respondents said they have never had debt, which means that 90 percent of millennials have had some sort of non-mortgage debt in their lives.

How long does paying off $100K in student loans take? Although the standard repayment plan is typically 10 years, some loans and repayment plans have longer terms, so you could be repaying for 20 or even 30 years.

Click here for the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom. Behind the numbers (WSJ): Due to escalating tuition and easy credit, the U.S. has 101 people who owe at least $1 million in federal student loans, according to the Education Department.

Total federal student loan debt

Most student loans — about 92.5% — are owned by the government.

In 2023, 28 percent of U.S. consumers said that their main source of personal non-mortgage debt were their credit card bills. Meanwhile, a 12 percent of respondents said that their leading source of debt were car loans. A third of respondents had no debt.

The most common sources of debt financing are commercial banks. Sources of debt financing include trade credit, accounts receivables, factoring, and finance companies.

But one generation carries the most, on average: Gen X. The average credit card balance for Gen Xers, defined at those between the ages of 43 and 58, rose to $9,123 in the third quarter of 2023, according to Experian's latest available data. That marks the highest average credit card balance of any generational cohort.