Latest news with #GenZer
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How Much Should the Average Middle-Class Gen Zer Have in Savings?
Gen Z hasn't had the smoothest entry into adulthood, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, rising homeownership costs and political uncertainty. And with so much going on in the world, you'll want to have a financial cushion to fall back on just in case. But exactly how much should you have in savings? Read More: Consider This: Here's what's realistic for a middle-class Gen Zer when it comes to savings, and how to build a solid financial foundation without feeling overwhelmed. When people talk about savings, they usually mean more than just a standard bank account. It can include: Emergency funds Retirement savings, like a Roth IRA or 401(k) Short-term savings for things like travel, moving, or a new laptop Brokerage accounts Depending on your income, lifestyle, and goals, the right mix will look different for everyone. But if you're a middle-class Gen Zer who's earning somewhere in the $40,000 to $60,000 range, here's what to aim for. Check Out: Your savings should ideally cover a few different areas of your life: emergencies, long-term goals like retirement and short-term plans you're working toward right now. Ideally, you'll want to have three to six months' worth of expenses in a high-yield savings account. In other words, if your monthly costs add up to $2,000, you'd be aiming for somewhere between $6,000 and $12,000. Note that your emergency savings are intended for emergencies only, like car repairs, medical bills, or sudden job loss. Avoid dipping into it for things that aren't urgent. Financial planners often suggest saving around 15% of your income for retirement, but if you're just starting out in your career and don't have much to save, even 5% is a great start. A common benchmark is to have your annual salary saved for retirement by the time you turn 30. So if you make $100,000 a year, the goal is to have at least that amount saved up. That includes investment growth too, not just your personal contributions. This is for things you know are coming up soon (like moving into your own place, buying a car, or taking a trip). You don't need a specific number here, but it helps to set goals and work backward. If you want to take a $1,500 trip in six months, saving $250 a month gets you there. The median net worth of people under 35 (including Gen Z and some millennials) is around $39,000, according to the 2023 Survey of Consumer Finances. That number doesn't tell the whole story, though, since many Gen Zers have barely started their career, and some are still in school. For example, if you're under 27 and still trying to figure out what you want to do, you may not have $39,000 lying around. Though it's helpful to have an idea of what the average is, it's not healthy to compare yourself to someone else who's on a different journey than you. Focus on creating a savings plan that makes sense for where you are right now. If you don't have much saved, you're actually in the same boat as a lot of people your age. Don't panic. The most important thing is to start now, even if it's small. Putting away $25 a week adds up to $1,300 a year. That's enough to build your first emergency cushion or start a Roth IRA. Also, take advantage of anything that gives you a head start. If your job offers a 401(k) match, try to contribute enough to get the full match because it's essentially free money. You don't have to make big sacrifices to build savings on a middle-class income. A few simple habits go a long way: Automate transfers to savings Use a budgeting app to spot areas where you're overspending Negotiate down your high-interest debt Cancel unnecessary subscriptions Dine in instead of eating out There's no one magic number for how much a Gen Zer should have saved. But if you're aiming for a few thousand in emergency savings, contributing regularly to retirement, and setting aside money for things you care about, you're doing just fine. More From GOBankingRates 6 Hybrid Vehicles To Stay Away From in Retirement This article originally appeared on How Much Should the Average Middle-Class Gen Zer Have in Savings? Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Gen Z is hurtling toward a career cliff
Jacqueline Kline was a proud overachiever in college. She enrolled in a packed class schedule, attended campus networking events, landed an impressive slate of internships, and graduated cum laude from Florida State University. Then, after her 2023 graduation celebrations wound down, Kline found herself back in her childhood bedroom. Over the next year, she applied to hundreds of communications and media jobs between babysitting shifts. The responses were deflating: Some companies sent quick rejections, others turned her away after a couple of interviews, but most simply ghosted her. "I graduated, but I didn't feel successful," the now 24-year-old told me. "I had this degree — and that's a privilege, not everyone has that opportunity — but it didn't matter. My GPA didn't matter. None of it mattered if I didn't have a job." It's a tough time to look for work. For 20-somethings, breaking into the market is particularly daunting. Companies and consumers are bracing for an economic slowdown, and employees are hesitant to leave their current gigs. Federal policy uncertainty is spooking businesses, and white-collar industries are not the safe career bets they used to be. The tried-and-true ways that young people used to climb the economic ladder are disappearing, and AI is threatening to replace entry-level work in enviable fields like tech. President Donald Trump's cost-cutting efforts have wiped out jobs in government agencies, nonprofits, and public health. Law school applications are ballooning beyond what the industry can sustain, and humanitarian routes like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps are among the White House DOGE office's latest targets. It all leaves young people — even those who spent their teen and university years positioning themselves for the future — barreling toward a career cliff. So, what's an ambitious Gen Zer to do? Kline is finishing her second year of graduate school at FSU. She said she gave up looking for full-time work because "the burnout was definitely real" and decided to take out student loans to pursue her master's. Many of her friends are also facing tough decisions: Commit to a tall stack of job applications, go back to get another degree, or settle for a role outside their chosen field. Each option feels risky. set of circumstances. As Richard Mansfield, an economics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, put it, Gen Z has "a whole lot of clouds on the horizon." Based on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's analysis of census data, 41.2% of graduates in their early and mid-20s were underemployed in March, meaning they were working jobs that don't typically require a bachelor's degree. That's up from 38.9% in December. And Ivy alums aren't immune: In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that job placement at more than a dozen top MBA programs was the worst "in recent memory" last year. Notably, Harvard told the Journal that 23% of its job-seeking MBAs who graduated in spring 2024 were still looking for work three months after leaving campus, a figure that was up from 20% in the prior year and more than double what it was in 2022. Higher education may be known for its historical role as a path to prestige and higher pay, but Gen Zers are wondering whether it's worth it anymore. Bella Babbitt, 21, graduated a year early from a private New York liberal arts school with a dual degree in business and sociology in 2024. She hoped her internships and the fact that she completed her bachelor's in just three years would help her to land a role in media strategy and to eventually start her own business. She spent a year applying to hundreds of roles without luck while taking on odd jobs to make money, such as waiting tables and delivering food. More recently, she's worked at a marketing firm owned by a family friend. She "truly believes" the reason she's employed is because of that personal connection. "I was applying and I felt like, 'This is so stupid because I know I'm going to get rejected,'" she said, adding, "My parents have such a different mindset, where they can't comprehend how we've applied to all these jobs and we're not getting anything." Historically reliable prestige jobs are facing challenges, too. In tech, hopeful grads are being boxed out of entry-level positions not only by AI, but also by hiring freezes. In law, US firms' hiring of entry-level summer associates is hitting a historic low. Even "stopgap" roles that were stepping stones to bigger things are evaporating: From the start of 2023 to the start of 2025, internship postings on the college job-search platform Handshake declined by over 15%. When Gen Zers are ready to take the leap into a larger role, they're finding themselves stuck — young people can't fill desks because older generations are delaying plans to quit and retire, leaving new grads on the lower rung of the career ladder for longer. It's leaving Abbey Owens discouraged. She graduated summa cum laude last month from a liberal arts college with a record of marketing internships, good grades, and a slew of unanswered applications. After months on the job hunt, the 21-year-old said she's thinking about bartending and losing hope of finding a role in her field: "I'll accept almost anything," she told me. Babbitt and Owens describe the pain of continuous rejection — a stream of "no's" that drags on for months or years, application after application. Their experience is a symptom of a landscape with a dwindling number of job postings and lower hiring rates. One in five job seekers is considered long-term unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meaning they've been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. Even Gen Zers who are trying to follow their passions into less pressure-packed jobs than finance and tech are facing tough times. Young people dedicated to public service or academia, where there is an implicit exchange of stability in place of bigger salaries, are staring at an uncertain road. A 21-year-old University of Maryland student (who asked not to be named for fear of career retaliation) told me they'd lost two roles because of federal government cuts. This spring, they were interning at the Transportation Security Administration before being let go after DOGE prompted cuts of the agency's remote work contracts. Their summer internship — a coveted role at an intelligence agency — was canceled the following week. "I think it's just important for people to know how shocking all of this is," they said, adding, "There's a whole new wave of talented young individuals who are excited about public service who are being denied opportunities and thrown to the dirt." Now, without a summer job, they're likely to stay in their hometown and scoop ice cream or take shifts at a coffee shop, they said. They have two years left at Maryland, and they're rethinking their dream of working in government. Other public sector options aren't promising, either. As part of DOGE 's work, federal agencies are under a hiring freeze, AmeriCorps is pausing programs, the Peace Corps is cutting staff, and federally funded roles at nonprofits, science labs, and public health centers are vanishing. Amid the rising sense of doom, Mansfield cautions that the Zoomer labor market outlook is complicated — and economists don't yet have a full picture. Hard indicators show the economy is relatively healthy on paper: The US added a higher-than-expected number of jobs in May, inflation is getting under control, and the unemployment rate is low. Mansfield said that "the data hasn't caught up yet" to reflect the loss of entry-level opportunities that many new grads are experiencing. "It's not as if we're running out of useful things for young, educated people to do," he said. "It's just that we're undermining our mechanisms for getting them there." While Gen Z might seem headed toward a careerpocalypse, economists and labor market analysts told me the cruelest part was that this instability wasn't inevitable. Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said Gen Zers were almost set up for success. Gould's analysis of labor market data from May indicates that even after adjusting for inflation, 16- to 24-year-old workers experienced historically strong wage growth of 9.1% from February 2020 to March of this year, a figure that exceeded wage growth for workers 25 and older (5.4%). The cohort was set to have lower average unemployment rates and better job opportunities than every other set of young workers since the 1990s. But the rosy picture has rapidly worsened. Job prospects for 22- to 27-year-olds with a bachelor's degree or higher " deteriorated noticeably" in the first quarter of this year, per the New York Fed, and the recent-grad gap — the difference between the overall unemployment rate and the unemployment rate for people who recently graduated from college — just hit its widest point in at least 40 years. It's worth noting that previous generations have faced tough labor markets: Some baby boomers launched their careers in the middle of the 1970s stagflation, and millennials were looking for jobs in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But Gen Zers are seeing the start of a troubling trend. Educated Zoomers, specifically, are now more unemployed than the rest of America, something that didn't happen early in the pandemic, during the Great Recession, or in the midst of the dot-com crash. "When the overall unemployment rate goes up a little bit more, I don't think people always understand that that is what happens: the 'last hired, first fired' phenomenon," Gould said, adding: "What are you going to do at that point? You've gone into debt going to school, you've already decided your major, you've already made all those investments. It's very hard to shift." The economists I spoke with emphasized that there were solutions to the Gen Z career cliff, but things may get worse before they get better. Mansfield said some sectors, like caregiving and healthcare, could see increased labor demand as baby boomers and Gen Xers grow older — even if those opportunities aren't as attractive to people trained to do something else, like law or finance. He added that as AI becomes more integrated into the economy, Gen Zers and later generations will most likely start to find roles in careers that don't exist yet. Kline, the recent Florida State grad, is banking on some sort of turnaround. Even as opportunities for people with advanced degrees dry up, she thinks the master's and some more internships will make her resumé that much more attractive to prospective employers. "I'm reminding myself that it will be worth it, taking all these loans will be worth it, because having this master's degree will get me further and give me a better chance at a job opportunity," Kline said, adding. "Before I came back to school, that was one of the loneliest times of my life." Market conditions are changing how ambitious Gen Zers see themselves and their work. It isn't just about whether they can land a job after graduation. A lot of people my age feel that open doors older generations took for granted — having access to homeownership and retirement, affording kids or healthcare or further education — are being locked alongside our career paths. It's part of why young people are becoming less loyal to the grind, or giving up on traditionally white collar careers altogether. It's also why Isabella Clemmens, 22, is betting on herself. After graduating from Oregon State in May, she's moving to Austin to try out a new city, meet friends, attend concerts, and try living on her own. When Clemmens and I spoke a few weeks ago, she was planning to work in retail until her growing stack of applications landed her a branding or graphic design role. After four years of hard work, she hadn't expected her job hunt to be so challenging. To kick off postgrad life in Texas, though, she would have to make concessions. "My dream job might exist," she told me. "But I'm one of 400 people applying for it."
Business Insider
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
The Labubus got me — and I learned a trick to finally buy one
I thought I was strong. Then I saw their strange, toothy smiles. The Labubus — little plush monster toys specifically marketed at adults — hooked me. Over the next weeks, I embarked on an adventure of internet rabbit holes, hourslong TikTok livestreams, and several nights playing a game online before I finally learned a trick from Reddit that helped me snag one. I'm far from alone in my obsession: The Labubu craze has taken hold in the US, Asia, and the UK. There's something mesmerizing about the creature, originally created by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung a decade ago. Now it is part of "The Monsters" line from Pop Mart, a Chinese toy company whose 2024 revenue doubled from the year prior, thanks in part to the "particularly impressive" performance of these crazy little creatures. Labubus first became popular overseas, as my colleagues in Singapore chronicled all the way back in November; we're just the latest country to catch the fever. In just the last month, US search interest in Labubus has spiked — and Americans are scrambling to get their hands on them. They are part status symbol, part weird little guy, and part bag accessory. Indeed, once they came across my social media feeds, I went from thinking "What is that?" to "I must have one." But it turns out that's easier said than done. The smaller Labubus that people hang on their bags start at $22, and the larger ones go up to $180, but you can't just go to a store or website and buy them. Instead, I entered the new world of Labubu "drops" — the timed releases of the monsters on their official web home — and learned that, to buy an authentic Labubu, my journey had only just begun. First came the Pop Mart TikTok lives: In the latest iteration of live shopping, the company holds live streams on TikTok where Labubus may or may not be offered. You have to bide your time and act fast to get a Labubu this way. Unfortunately, I am a brain-rotted geriatric Gen Zer and did not have the patience to stay on a livestream for what could be hours, though in the process, I began to understand the appeal of having QVC blasting on a TV in the background. The next method was going in person to a Pop Mart. There are a few stories in New York City, but there's no guarantee that they'd be stocked. Pop Mart paused in-store sales in the UK due to long lines, so I wasn't entirely sold on going in person. This is where my animal brain came in: The harder it became to get a Labubu, the more I wanted one. Its comforting texture, popular appeal, and exclusive availability created a perfect storm of psychological urges to get me to spend my money, and, as it seemed only harder and harder, all I wanted to do was buy one of these little monsters. In the meantime, I did get two Lafufus, knock-off Labubus that have become ubiquitous at New York City street stands and gift shops. They are horrifying, and I love them. I named one after one of my editors, who isn't quite sold on the hype around the cute monsters. Finally, I came across a new method for acquiring one of the monsters: Pop Mart launched a live game called Pop Now. Every night at a certain time, players have a chance to click through numbered virtual boxes containing Labubus, and, if you are fast enough to click on one before another player, you can virtually shake it and claim your prize. Then — and only then — would you get the privilege of buying one. I spent several nights toiling away at Pop Now to no avail. Finally, I checked the Labubu subreddit, which is filled with similarly enthralled (and very helpful) folks. From them, I learned that changing a few numbers in the URLto pull up different numbered lots would allow me to view boxes that aren't necessarily public-facing yet. This basically entailed me putting random numbers into the middle of the URL, while preserving the numbers at the start and end of the URL because they demarcated the type of product I was looking for. Thus, I snagged my Labubu. It's on the way from China, and it's pink, aka lychee berry; I am very excited. Do I think my Labubu will solve all of my problems? No. Did I need one? Probably not. But the thrill of the chase got me; it is, after all, a consumer tale as old as Beanie Babies and other trinkets. It also shows what Americans are willing to spend on right now, even with economic concerns and tariff confusion — it turns out we just want weird little guys. Are you a Labubu lover, hater, or hopeful buyer? Do you have another product obsession? Contact this reporter at .
Newsweek
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Gen Z Woman Quit All Social Media—What She Learned Was Eye-Opening
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Little is yet known about the impact that growing up with technology, particularly social media, has had on Generation Z. Studies are still being done on the long-term effects of platforms such as TikTok and Instagram now that those born between 1997 and 2012 grow older. But several sources have already highlighted the link between worsening mental health and social media usage. One Gen Zer took matters into her own hands to try to discover what a life without social media could look like—a life she had hardly ever known. Quynh Van, 26, a UX designer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, told Newsweek about what she learned from going cold turkey on all social media for four years. "Stepping away from social media gave me the space to reconnect with myself—to think more clearly, develop new hobbies, and break out of the cycle of constant comparison," Van told Newsweek. "I became more present in my relationships, more emotionally resilient, and more intentional about how I move through the world. Quynh Van addresses her followers on TikTok. Quynh Van addresses her followers on TikTok. @quynhxvan "I shared my story online because I wanted to offer a counter-narrative—one rooted in intention, gentleness, self-acceptance, and a slower, more meaningful way of living." Indeed, Van took to TikTok on May 14 to open up about her experience, shortly after rejoining the platform following her lengthy hiatus. To date, the candid clip has been viewed more than 1 million times, generating thought and emotion within its audience about the drawbacks of being online. "I quit social media four years ago and it completely changed my life," Van said in the video, speaking directly to her phone's camera. "For background, I deleted everything—Instagram, Twitter, everything—back in the beginning of 2021. "It is now 2025 and I just started TikTok a month ago and this is the only social media I have." Van spoke about the most-profound changes she experienced during her digital detox. "The first thing I noticed was that I just became my most-authentic self," she said. "You're just a much more interesting person because you're not consuming what other people are thinking, doing, wearing or saying. "You have much more space for your own thoughts, learning new hobbies, reading new books, reading articles," Van added. Without social media dictating the trends she should keep an eye on or influencing her lifestyle, Van said she gained a stronger sense of identity in a short amount of time. "It's refreshing because you know the person you're becoming is who you're meant to be," she said. Another key realization was how much free time Van reclaimed, free time that she could now spend on real-life hobbies and activities and on her personal development. "You suddenly have so much time you didn't even know you had," Van added. "It's so productive and it's so freeing. "Life just stops disappearing into a scroll," she added. Quynh Van is pictured standing outdoors. Quynh Van is pictured standing outdoors. @quynhxvan One of the most-moving insights came when Van recognized the toll social media had taken on her mental health. "I stopped comparing myself," Van said. "Another thing I learned was that I had to learn to sit with my emotions. "You can't just inoculate yourself with dopamine hits and avoid the painful emotions anymore with social media; you have to learn to sit in the discomfort." Van later said that this made her stronger, more emotionally resilient, and, for the first time, truly able to gain peace inside her own mind. "My brain felt green—it was a forest of peace," Van added. Her relationships, she found, also improved, adding: "When you're grounded in reality, you show up differently, you're more present, you listen better." Prior to 2021, Van said she spent a lot of time on her cellphone, forming parasocial connections with the influencers, celebrities and even old friends that she still followed online. At the time, she considered those virtual relationships meaningful and important—until stepping away showed her how little they actually mattered, and how she only needed to stay informed about the people she saw in her day-to-day reality. The realization was both sobering and liberating. Van was surprised by her TikTok post's viral reach, especially so early in her return to social media. "Going viral was a surprise, especially since I'd just come back online and created the account," Van said, "but also incredibly affirming. "I'm grateful my words resonate and offer clarity and comfort to others." Encouraged by the response, Van said she plans to continue creating emotionally honest and thoughtful content on the platform. "I hope to continue using my voice to create content that's inspiring—and this experience has encouraged me to keep going to share my unique perspective."
New York Post
08-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Gen Z says salary norm should be ‘banned' — but critics say ‘it really is not that difficult'
A fired-up Gen Zer has declared being paid fortnightly in Australia should be straight-up 'banned' because she finds it difficult to manage her salary. Ren Adelina, 21, has amassed over 700,000 views on TikTok by declaring she's unhappy with a fortnightly pay cycle. 'Getting paid fortnightly needs to be genuinely banned,' she said. 'One week I am so rich, I am so rich! The next week … I am living off genuine scraps.' According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, fortnightly is the most common pay cycle for Aussie workers, followed by weekly and then monthly. Speaking to Adelina reiterated her position and said she'd much prefer to be paid more frequently. A fired-up Gen Zer has declared being paid fortnightly in Australia should be straight-up 'banned' because she finds it difficult to manage her salary. 'I think it should be banned because for us Gen Zers we were never taught how to manage money properly,' she said. 'Getting a huge influx of money at once, of course, we are going to get excited and are going to blow it all on food, shopping, outings, etc.' Adelina said the problem with that is that once it is gone, it is gone, and then she's got to hang out for another grueling seven days. 'Then, after we spend it all, there is none left for the next week. Maybe I just have a shopping addiction,' she said. The 21-year-old doesn't just want to ban fortnightly pay with no other solution. She's got plans. 'I believe we should get paid weekly instead as it provides more frequent income, making it easier to manage all expenses. I think it also simplifies budgeting,' she said. Adelina's suggestion of banning fortnightly pay quickly took a turn when people on the internet broke the news to her that some people get paid … monthly. One warned, 'Wait until you get paid monthly.' The 21-year-old replied, 'Stop, that is so scary!' Someone else chimed in and said getting paid monthly is 'criminal' and another demanded to know what professions get paid monthly so they can avoid them. Ren Adelina, 21, has amassed over 700,000 views on TikTok by declaring she's unhappy with a fortnightly pay cycle. The commentator quickly discovered that monthly pay isn't specific to one industry. Everyone, from childcare workers to trade workers, get paid monthly. It is just up to the employer's discretion. The comment section quickly became populated by workers getting paid monthly who argued that fortnightly wasn't so bad in comparison. 'Babe, I'm counting my coins on monthly pay,' one said. 'Monthly is horrendous,' another shared. 'I get paid monthly. You got lucky,' someone claimed. 'Every adult I know gets paid monthly. Budgeting is hard,' another worker shared. 'Fortnightly isn't bad. Wait until you see monthly,' one warned. 'I applaud those who can wait a whole month. I can't even do two weeks,' someone else shared. Quite a few people also suggested to the 21-year-old that it wasn't how frequently she was getting paid but rather how she managed her money. 'Just budget. It really is not that difficult. I love getting paid fortnightly,' one shared. 'Not knowing how to budget should be banned,' another joked. 'I get paid fortnightly, and when you get paid, literally just split it in half and put it aside in another account until the following week,' someone else said.
