Millennials remain painfully stunted in their careers due to the economic crisis of 2008. Despite being the most educated generation in history, millennial unemployment is at 17 percent while the national unemployment rate is at 5.8 percent.
This young generation of 18 to 34-year-olds has found that key life events, such as marriage and home ownership, must lay dormant while they struggle to find jobs and to pay off ghastly amounts of student loan debt.
Thirty-one percent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are living with their parents, according to a recent report by the Joint Economic Committee. This is the highest percentage in four decades. Young adults who do decide to leave the nest are unlikely to be making wise long-term investments such as buying a home. According to the study, nearly 80 percent of Millennials under 25 rent their homes, and around 67 percent in their late twenties are still renting.
Two million fewer households were formed by Millennials between the years 2007 and 2011 than what was projected, according to the report.
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Even if young people land new, better-paying jobs at some point, lower earnings earlier in their careers may result in permanently lower retirement savings and net worth than might have been the case if economic conditions had been better when they first entered the labor force.
This overall economic atrophy will have a lasting impact on the economic strength of not only this generation, but on the country as a whole, especially as a declining rate of young adults opt to buy their own homes, head their own households, and start their own families.
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