Millennials are projected [4] to number 75.3 million for 2015, surpassing a projected 74.9 million for Baby Boomers. The Millennials will therefore comprise a greater percentage of the population than Baby Boomers for the first time. To gain insight into the saving habits of Millennials, we recently performed a survey of those from the ages of 18 to 34. We received 2,585 responses to our survey. The results of our survey found that over 50% of Millennials have less than $1,000 in savings. This would indicate that most millennials do not have a cushion to fall back on in case of an emergency. The rest of our findings can be analyzed with the visualizations below:
For those surveyed, we found that:
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51.8% of Millennials have less than $1,000 in savings.
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18% of Millennials have savings of $1,000 to $5,000.
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7.3% of Millennials have savings of $5,000 to $10,000.
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6.4% of Millennials have savings of $10,000 to $20,000.
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16.5% of Millennials have savings of more than $20,000.
Millennials Savings by Income Group
Breaking it down by the income of the survey participant, we unsurprisingly found that the level of income appeared to have a correlation with the amount of savings. We found that:
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56.3% of Millennials earning $25,000 to $49,000 had less than $1,000 in savings. This compared with 31.2% of those earning $75,000 to $99,999.
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Among those earning $100,000 to $149,000, 14.8% had savings of $5,000 to $10,000
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14.3% of those with savings of $10,000 to $20,000 were those Millennials with incomes in excess of $150,000, the highest percentage in that range of savings.
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Around 50% of those with incomes in excess of $150,000 had savings of more than $20,000.
Millennials Savings by Gender Group
We also found differences in the amount of savings between male and female respondents:
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56.7% of females have less than $1,000 in savings as compared to 46.5% for males.
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On the upper end of the savings scale, 21.5% of males have more than $20,000 saved versus only 11.9% for females.
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For savings in the range of $1,000 to $20,000, the percentages between male and females respondents were roughly the same.
Millennials Savings by Age Group
For a breakdown of savings by age groups we found:
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57.6% of respondents from the ages of 18 to 24 have less than $1,000 in savings. This compared to 47.1% of those from the ages of 25 to 34.
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For savings of $1,000 to $5,000, 19.6% of respondents from 18 to 24 had savings in this range, compared to 16.6% of those from 25 to 34.
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On the upper end of the scale, 11.7% of those from 18 to 24 had savings in excess of $20,000, compared with 20.5% of those from 25 to 34.
Surprisingly, it appears [5] that Millennials may be saving more money than other those in other age groups. Still, their financial behavior remains a mystery [6] even to Janet Yellen, the head of the Federal Reserve. Since Millennials are growing as a percentage of the population, their savings and spending habits will increasingly have a major impact on the overall economy.
