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Half of millennials are getting help from parents to pay bills
Jul 30, 2019, 1:25 PM
A large number of millennials say they receive regular financial help from Mom and Dad. In 2020, more of them are just plain moving back home. Photo: Getty Images
Almost half of millennials report they are receiving some sort of financial support from their parents, according to a new survey by Money Under 30.
Is this a parenting issue? Have their parents just done such a poor job at teaching them how to learn and grow up? Or is it something else?
“How many people are unprepared for retirement? The same people that are subsidizing their adult children,” Granite School District Spokesperson Ben Horsley said on Monday’s Dave and Dujanovic Show.
Millennials are strapped for cash
According to the study, this year millennials are set to become the largest living generation in American history, but 80% of those surveyed don’t think that they will be able to achieve the same material goals that their parents have.
The study breaks down that parents are the first stop for that extra financial help for 48% of those that make up the 22-37 year demographic. 46% of them report getting help for basic monthly costs like housing, cell phone bills, and groceries.
The biggest area that they’re looking for help in, though, is cellphone bills (17.5%), followed by groceries (9.8%) and rent (6.49%).
Those studied say the biggest setbacks to their financial wellbeing come from a combination of low salaries, high rent, and mortgage payments combined with student debt.
“Squeezed by today’s inflated cost of living, millennials must strike a financial balancing act: saving money in a society that has a high cost of living. Millennials are struggling to make this a reality,” the study says.
That is one of the reasons that millennials are having a difficult time saving, according to the study.
Struggling to save
43% of the millennials surveyed report that they save anywhere between 1% and 10% of their paycheck, but that’s not adding up to much. 60% of those millennials have under $5,000 in savings, and 13% of them don’t have anything in savings.
The good news is that millennials still have a good attitude for their future. It just might take a little more planning and savings for them to get there. In the conclusion of the study, the researchers say that, while the millennials surveyed have enough to cover the basics, “They must put more emphasis on additional savings and debt-prevention.”
You can hear the full conversation that KSL Newsradio reporter Mary Richards and Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsely had about this topic, as well as many of our listener’s comments on the podcast below.
