젊은 세대의 부채 위기: 경제적 어려움과 파멸적 지출

### 젊은 세대가 직면한 부채 위기: 금융 안정을 위한 투쟁
* 💳 밀레니얼 세대는 **평균 부채가 8%**, Z세대는 **2022~2023년 사이에 15% 이상 증가**할 것으로 예상되는 등 오늘날 젊은이들은 심각한 부채 문제로 어려움을 겪고 있습니다.
* 📉 부채가 소폭 감소한 부머 세대와 달리 **젊은 세대는 비용 상승과 임금 정체**를 따라잡기가 점점 더 어려워지고 있습니다.
* 💰 공인 치료사인 Shaheem은 **22~24세의 경우 2013년 인플레이션을 조정한 소득이 약 5만 2천 달러**였던 것에 비해 **현재 소득은 약 4만 5천 달러**로, 젊은 세대의 소득이 같은 연령대의 노인들보다 적다고 강조합니다.
* 🏠 중간 주택 가격이 **40만 달러를 넘고 대출 비용이 7%에 달하는 등** 주택 시장은 많은 청년들에게 주택 소유가 불가능해 보이는 또 다른 문제를 안고 있습니다.
* 📈 신용카드 부채도 증가하고 있으며, **20대 초반의 평균 잔액은 2013년 밀레니얼 세대보다 26% 더 높**았고, **Z세대 사용자 7명 중 1명은 카드 한도를 초과**한 것으로 나타났습니다.
* 🎓 학자금 대출에 대한 부담이 특히 큰데, **학비가 연간 약 9만 달러**로 치솟으면서 많은 사람들이 4년제 학위의 가치를 재고하게 됩니다.
* 🛍 Z세대의 **35%**와 밀레니얼 세대의 **43%**가 이러한 행동을 인정하는 등 젊은 세대는 재정적 어려움에 대응하기 위해 **'운명적 소비'**를 하는 것으로 나타났습니다.
* 📉 많은 청년들이 재정적 미래에 대한 불확실성에 직면하여 **불안과 은퇴를 위한 저축의 잠재적 감소**로 이어지기 때문에 이러한 부채 위기의 정신적 피해는 매우 심각합니다.

젊은 세대는 점점 더 많은 부채 부담을 안고 있으며, 임금 정체와 비용 상승 속에서 라이프스타일을 유지하기 위해 고군분투하고 있습니다.

Young people are facing a serious debt problem. Between 2022 and 2023, Boomers saw a slight decrease in debt year over year, while Gen X saw a slight uptick. But Millennials saw their average debt increase by 8%, and Gen Z more than 15%. Many young adults are finding themselves sinking deeper into debt. This credit card concern seems to be particularly true for Gen Z. Young people today are being shut out of the American dream. So how much worse off are younger generations? And how did it get so bad? I am in debt for education. Oh my God, I didn't know there was a word for it. Doom spending. I start getting overwhelmed about, okay, how am I going to pay this off? If you ask me how I would describe my generation financially broke. Very broke. The minimum wage is so low, and it's not livable. I don't feel like wages have kept up with inflation at all.

Do I feel like my income has kept up with the rising cost of food and cost of living in general? Absolutely not. I now make probably just a little bit more than I did when I finished undergrad in 2017. Meaning like my income has not gone up much at all and I have a whole master's degree now. Meet Shaheem, a licensed therapist living in Brooklyn. The difference between Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X and the Boomers, they had a lot more opportunity because their wages kind of matched up with how much things cost. They're not wrong. Younger people today are making less than older people did at the same age. Adjusting for inflation, 22 to 24-year-olds in 2013 were making almost $52,000 a year. That number today down to $45,000. And that difference puts Gen Z in a tough spot. In 2013, the debt-to-income ratio for the same age group was 11.76%.

Today, it's more than 16%. Technically, younger generations today are making more than any other generation did. But when you adjust for inflation, which is, you know, relative to the cost of everything else to maintain a lifestyle, it is less. And from 2021 to 2022, for those aged 35 to 44, median income fell 0.8%, compared to a 0.6% drop for those aged 25 to 34. But for the 15 to 24-year-olds, median income fell 5.8%. That means the youngest generation saw the most significant drop in median income when adjusted for inflation. Emotionally, about my wages and income, I cannot tell you how much anxiety I live through on a daily basis. I don't have a safety net. I don't have anybody financially backing me. I don't have a support system. I don't have anybody to go to if I don't hold it all together.

And that is anxiety-inducing. The gap between wages and the cost of living has pushed many younger people to increasingly turn to credit cards to pay for goods and services. Last year, the average credit card balance for early twentysomethings was 26% higher than the balance Millennials carried at the same age in 2013. Not only is Gen Z racking up credit card debt faster than any other generation, but 1 in 7 Gen Z credit card users are reportedly maxed out. In this period of high inflation, people are just trying to maintain the lifestyles that they've always had, and it just costs more. Increasingly, these low wages are also compounding with another big challenge for younger generations: rising housing costs. What I'm more worried about after graduation is affording a house. The market right now is kind of scary. There's no way I could own a home. That's like a far-fetched dream.

The cost of, like, homes has just changed dramatically. It's, like, really hard to even rent. The older generations just do not have a realistic view of exactly what we're dealing with. They grew up in a time period where you could go to work. You could, like, work a 9 to 5 and only that 9 to 5. And over time, you'll be able to save up enough to buy a home. That's not the standard anymore. The landscape for housing, both renting and buying, looks very different for young people today. Thanks to soaring prices and high interest rates. Older generations, including Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, still make up the majority share of home buyers. The barrier to entry to buy a home is much higher. You have to have a bigger down payment because the median value of a home is over $400,000, right? At the same time, borrowing costs are higher, they're at 7%.

And so taken altogether, you just need to save a lot more and a lot longer to be able to buy, you know, a starter home. For renters, it's also troubling. Rents nationwide climbed 30% from 2019 to 2023, while wages across the country were only up 20%. You know, housing costs are just taking up that much more of their paycheck. The rent goes up every year. The wages do not. Depending on the month, it can be upwards of like 50% of my income. Between housing being so expensive and income not keeping up with inflation, the debt crisis for younger generations has only intensified. But for many, including Shaheem, there's another much larger obstacle looming over them. If I had to say which debt scares me the most, it is hands down my student loans. My tuition is around $90,000 a year, which is insane. You meet someone from another country and they're like, it's what?

Like, that's a lot of money. I don't know the balance. Last time I checked, it was upwards of $150,000, $160,000. One of the biggest debt burdens that they'll take on and one of the first debts most Americans take on. More than ever before, the very thing young adults are told to do to secure their future is one of the biggest reasons that the future is increasingly in doubt. We're seeing college enrollment levels drop, or we're seeing that some students are trying to be smarter about, you know, how they're going to college. Some are living at home. Some are forgoing college altogether. Let's look at the average cost of public universities since 1970, when a year's tuition cost around $1,300. In 2020, public university tuition was over $21,000 yearly. Of course, that's 50 years worth of inflation. But when we adjust for inflation, the cost to attend public university

in 1970 was only around $10,000, less than half of today's cost. When we look at the cost of private universities, adjusted for inflation, it's a huge jump, too, to more than $52,000, compared to less than $21,000 in 1970. Those really high student debt level burdens are not common in other countries. We are seeing a mass kind of disillusionment with higher education. And, you know, I think getting a four-year college degree used to be so intertwined with the American dream. And some young people are rejecting that. In one poll, more than half of those who borrowed for education say that student loan debt has caused them to put off making important financial decisions. I grew up in abject poverty. I went to school. I graduated. I did all of the things that they said that I should do, and I am still stuck in the same spot.

This massive burden, combined with others for their generation, paints a bleak picture for the debt crisis. But there's a fourth, lesser-known reason that feeds off of this bleak outlook. It's called doom spending. Doom spending. Doom spending to cope with the stress. Home ownership or starting a family is so out of reach. I think that people want to treat themselves to small luxuries that'll bring us a semblance of the kind of adulthood we were promised. Doom spending, I love it. It kind of makes us, you know, feel a little bit happier about the situation. So if it's going to be like this regardless, I might as well get something for myself that I like and enjoy. For me, it's like shopping, clothing, travel. It does alleviate some of the stress. Doom spending is like retail therapy with a fatalist twist. A lot of people feel hopeless or pessimistic about their financial futures,

and that's manifesting in a lot of different ways. Some people turn to doom spending. And this consumer habit is backed by research. So in one of my research papers, I looked to ask the question, why do people not save enough for retirement ages? That's Stephen Wolff, an economics professor at Hamilton College. And there have been many explanations for why people do not save. Sometimes people lack the information about how to save. Some people might lack self-control to do so. They may know that they should save, but that they're unable to do so. And I introduce another phenomenon, this idea that perhaps people are fatalistic. They think that whatever they do doesn't necessarily affect their future outcomes. Professor Wu's study found that those who doom spend, or have fatalistic tendencies, believe they have little or no control over their future. So that may lead to individuals to just throw their hands up and say, well,

Why worry about saving now? Because even if I do save, I may still have financial difficulties in the future. Instead of saving, many are splurging on luxury goods to soothe their economic despair. And while 27% of Americans of all ages admit to doom spending, the rates are even higher among Gen Z and Millennials at 35 and 43%, respectively. Well, I believe that people do it because they need a dopamine hit. Younger generations are also growing up in an online environment of hyper consumption. People want this kind of TikTok, Instagram-worthy lifestyle. Never before have young people been so exposed to this aspirational lifestyle. “Partner with L'Oreal Paris to show you-” Where people kind of have these expectations of success, what they want their lives to look like “next from David Yurman”. And those things cost more. And the rise of buy now, pay later products has driven Gen Z into more debt.

Today, younger people have Venmo, they have PayPal, they have buy now, pay later. They have earned wage access. They have cash advance apps on their phone. It's so easy to lose track of how much you're spending. So, what does the future of this ballooning debt crisis hold for young adults? Many are looking to the government for help. But young people would need sweeping policy change to truly lessen the burden of debt. The emotional toll on younger people facing this debt crisis is immeasurable. There is a lot of uncertainty, and I think perhaps we may see people saving less. When those generations get older, they may be less prepared for retirement ages. Younger generations face some of the most difficult economic headwinds of their time that are forcing them to take on more debt to achieve the same lifestyle that generations before had.

Why Young People Are in So Much Debt

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2022년부터 2023년까지 밀레니얼 세대의 평균 부채는 8%, Z세대는 15% 이상 증가하는 등 젊은 세대의 부채가 크게 증가하고 있습니다.

젊은 세대의 재정적 어려움은 인플레이션을 따라가지 못하는 저임금으로 인해 더욱 악화되어 소득 대비 부채 비율이 높아지고 있습니다.

특히 Z세대는 중위소득이 가장 크게 하락하면서 재정적 불안감이 커지고 안전망이 부족한 상황에 직면해 있습니다.

Z세대는 다른 어떤 세대보다 빠르게 신용카드 부채를 쌓아가고 있으며, 사용자 7명 중 1명은 한도를 초과한 상태입니다.

주거비 상승과 저임금으로 인해 젊은이들은 주택 중간 가격이 40만 달러가 넘고 대출 비용이 7%에 달하는 등 임대료와 주택 소유를 감당하기 어려워지고 있습니다.

또한 학자금 대출 부채도 상당한 부담으로 작용하여 연간 학비가 9만 달러에 달합니다.

학자금 부채는 현재 잔액이 15만 달러를 넘어서는 등 청년들에게 큰 재정적 부담이 되고 있습니다.

1970년 이후 공립 및 사립 대학에 다니는 데 드는 비용은 치솟았으며, 인플레이션을 감안하면 오늘날의 등록금은 두 배 이상 상승했습니다.

이로 인해 대학 등록률이 감소하고 많은 학생들이 집에서 살거나 아예 대학 진학을 포기하는 등 고등 교육에 대한 환멸이 커지고 있습니다.

재정적 스트레스에 대한 둠 지출의 영향

둠 소비는 주택 소유와 내 집 마련이 불가능해 보이는 현 세대의 많은 사람들이 직면한 재정적 스트레스에 대처하는 메커니즘입니다.

미래에 대한 절망과 비관으로 인한 이러한 소비 습관은 일시적인 행복감과 안도감을 제공합니다.

연구에 따르면 미래의 결과에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 자신의 능력에 대한 운명론적 믿음이 운명적 소비를 하는 경향에 기여하는 것으로 나타났습니다.

과소비와 부채가 청년층에 미치는 영향

많은 젊은이들이 도파민 분비 욕구와 소셜 미디어를 통한 열망적인 라이프스타일에 노출되면서 저축보다 사치품을 우선시하고 있습니다.

특히 Z세대와 밀레니얼 세대는 다양한 금융 앱을 통해 부채에 쉽게 접근하고 과소비 비율이 높기 때문에 더 큰 영향을 받고 있습니다.

급증하는 부채 위기는 청년들에게 불확실성을 야기하고 있으며, 미래의 재정적 준비에 대한 우려와 부담을 완화하기 위한 정책 변화의 필요성을 불러일으키고 있습니다.