Talking Points …
- New research from Labor Department data and a Dartmouth College professor shows that today’s young Americans are burdened by debt at a far greater rate than prior generations. Overall, more than a third of Americans age 24 to 28—or 35 percent—have debts that exceed their assets.
- Younger Americans today are taking on far less mortgage debt and far more student and credit-card debt than the early and late boomers did at the same age.
- Only 19.8 percent of today’s young Americans have home-related debt, down from 29.9 percent of their peers in the late 1980s and 43.1 percent of those in the mid-1970s. Conversely, 22.4 percent of young Americans today have education debt, compared with 5.1 percent among late baby boomers.