Millennials Feel Good About Their Finances And The Data Show Why

The generation once mocked for wasting money on $7 lattes and avocado toast is feeling better about its finances than older generations are.

Almost half of US millennials say their financial situation has improved from five years ago, according to an online survey of 3,000 adults published Tuesday by financial-services platform Chime. That compares with 43% of Generation X and 40% of baby boomers who say the same.

Millennials have long felt they were dealt a tough economic hand. Now aged between 29 and 45, many entered the job market during the Great Recession, saddled with historically high student debt. As they slogged through adulthood, they failed to reach financial milestones others had attained by the time they hit 40. Then, as many reached their prime earning years, the pandemic upended the economy, followed by the sharpest inflation in decades and a surge in borrowing costs.

Yet while millennials still trail older generations in accumulated wealth, they’ve been catching up quickly, Federal Reserve data show.

“I do believe most financial anxiety and stress comes from comparing ourselves to some made-up timeline,” said Brittney Castro, a certified financial planner who has partnered with Chime. “Obviously, we want to achieve more, we want to hit certain milestones, but we should also feel really good about the progress we’re making.”

That changing perception could matter beyond millennials’ bank accounts. With the midterm elections approaching, the economy — particularly the cost of living and affordability — is top of mind for voters.

To be sure, many millennials are still feeling the effects of those setbacks. More than half said they delayed at least one financial milestone because of financial challenges, including buying a home or having children, according to a 2026 survey from Northwestern Mutual.

But a key reason many millennials say they feel better than five years ago is that they are doing better.

Boomers’ net worth may be almost five times that of millennials, but the younger generation’s wealth is growing much faster. Since the beginning of 2021, millennials’ net worth has jumped 134% to $19.12 trillion, versus 32% for boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) and 40% for Gen X (those born between 1965 and 1980), according to Fed data.

Millennials may simply  be late bloomers, according to research by Kevin Corinth, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Opportunity and Social Mobility. Millennials had real median household incomes 20% higher than Gen Xers did at ages 36 to 40, according to an analysis published in 2026.

“As long as you go to age 30 or higher, the incomes of millennials are higher than the incomes of any previous generation at the same age,” Corinth said. Their gains over Gen X, however, haven’t been as large as the gains boomers made over the Silent Generation, who were born before 1946.

A booming stock market has also helped lift millennials’ wealth. They owned about $4.94 trillion in stocks as of the first three months of 2026 and the value of their corporate equities and mutual-fund holdings has more than doubled since 2021, Fed data show.

Boomers and Gen Xers own far more — about $29.71 trillion and $12.23 trillion, respectively — but the value of their holdings rose 47% and 51% over the same period. One reason millennials may have benefited more from the market rally is greater equity exposure among younger investors, while older investors tend to shift more of their portfolios toward bonds and other less volatile assets.

Homeownership tells a similar story.

Millennials’ homeownership rate still lags older generations. About 55% owned a home in 2025, compared with almost 80% of boomers and about 73% of Gen Xers, according to Redfin.

Even so, they are closing the gap. Their share of US real estate wealth has climbed to roughly 22%, from about 14% in 2021, while the shares held by boomers and Gen X have declined, Fed data show.

Here, too, millennials may be late bloomers. The median age of a first-time buyer has risen to 40, according to one survey from the National Association of Realtors.

In one area, millennials are outpacing other generations — but not for the better.

They hold about $2.34 trillion in consumer debt, including credit cards, personal loans, auto loans, student loans and other non-mortgage balances. That’s up 46% since the first quarter of 2021, compared with 16% for Gen X and 3% for boomers.

Still, some of the reasons millennials feel better come down to more than a balance sheet.

“The clients I’ve worked with who feel the most secure are rarely the ones with the biggest balances,” said Castro, the financial planner. “They’re more often the ones who are clear on what they actually want their money to do for them.”

Ryan Johnson hasn’t saved for his own retirement in nearly four years, but he says he still feels better off than he did five years ago. Back then, he had been furloughed from his project-management job at a hotel company. He changed careers and now the 33-year-old runs his own financial advisory firm.

Johnson had to dip into savings to get the business off the ground, but two years in, he’s bringing in as much as he did working full-time. And because he can seek out more clients rather than wait for a company to give him a raise, he feels more confident about his ability to grow his income.

“I learned very quickly that what previously was this secure career path, which was working for someone, could be taken away in an instant over things you can’t control,” Johnson said. He’s since joked with his wife that it would take $1 million a year to lure him back to corporate life.

“I have a belief and hope in a way that I didn’t have before when I was just working a job.”

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.