Most millennials think it's important to 'appear' rich, more than any other generation: study

Published

2 years ago

February 22, 2024

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Image-obsessed millennials think it’s important to “look or appear” financially successful more than previous generations — despite many of them struggling with high housing costs, student loanpayments, and compoundingcredit card debt, according to a recent Wells Fargo study.

While 54% of the millennials Wells Fargo surveyed say they’ve been greatly affected by the cost-of-living crisis, 59% of the 28-to-43-year-old age group think it’s important to show off their financial status through the way they dress, the car they drive, and the home they live in.

By comparison, just 35% of Gen Xers, 14% of baby boomers, and 7% of the silent generation feel the same about flaunting their wealth, according to the survey.

This “money dysmorphia,” as dubbed by Intuit Credit Karma, can lead millennials to be so obsessed with flaunting their riches that they bury themselves even deeper in debt, said Emily Irwin, managing director of advice and planning for Wells Fargo.

“Theres a growing trend to present themselves with an image that isnt reflective [of] their actual financial situation,” Irwin told Fortune, which first reported on the survey.

“For some, it could be even be a fake it until you make it mentality.”

What’s even more telling is that Wells Fargo’s study surveyed 1,000 affluent millennials, who make more than $250,000 per year, further proof that lower-income earners aren’t the only ones “grappling with this external image,” Irwin added.

Were living in a world where our net worth seems clickable — anyone can look up what we paid for our homes, handbags, or cars — and, because of this, showcasing a lavish lifestyle can feel more exhilarating than saving,” Irwin told The Post on Thursday.

Wells Fargo found that of the high earners in this age group, nearly one-third buy things they cannot afford to impress others or feel like they “fit in,” while 34% have been guilty of exaggerating their income, savings, or spending to maintain an appearance of financial success.

Irwin suggested millennials reassess how they view their economic situation.

“Tying financial behaviors to short- and long-term goals is the best way to get real about your money story and to make living within your means sexy — on and off TikTok, she said.

That’s not easy. Millennials face the worst economic headwinds in recent history. Stubbornly-high inflation has pushed interest rates to a 22-year high, crippling young would-be homebuyers.

The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage in the US, which is tracked weekly by Freddie Mac, is 6.64% — near a multi-decade high, though the figure has fallen from its 8% peak last October.

Credit card debt is also at an all-time high. Though it’s unclear how many millennials specifically are experiencing borrowing troubles, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in its third-quarter report released last November that overall debt levels increased by 1.3% during the three-month period, to $17.29 trillion.

Many millennials are also grappling with student loan payments.

Data from the US Department of Education showed that in October — when payments resumed after a three-year pause — some 40% of the 22 million borrowers did not make their payments.

There are signs that even fewer borrowers made payments in November, despite President Joe Bidens relief programs.

World

Ukrainian officials head to US for peace talks – while dramatic footage shows Russian oil tankers being hit

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2 hours ago

November 30, 2025

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Ukrainian officials head to US for peace talks - while dramatic footage shows Russian oil tankers being hit

Ukraine’s representatives are preparing for renewed peace talks in the US, while dramatic footage has shown Russian tankers being hit by naval drones.

President Zelenskyy said a delegation headed by national security chief Rustem Umerov was on its way to “swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war”.

They are due to be greeted by US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a senior US official told Reuters news agency.

After the US-Ukraine talks, an American delegation is expected to travel to Moscow to meet President Putin.

It comes after Mr Trump released a 28-point proposal last week that would hand swathes of land to Russia and limit the size of Kyiv’s military.

It was widely seen as heavily favouring Russia and led Mr Zelenskyy to swiftly engage with American negotiators.

President Trump said on Tuesday his plan had been “fine-tuned”.

In his evening address on Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said: “The American side is demonstrating a constructive approach, and in the coming days it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end.”

Mr Zelenskyy’s team in the US is without his former chief of staff and lead negotiator, Andrii Yermak, as he quit on Friday after officials raided his home amid a corruption scandal.

Tankers hit by ‘Sea Baby’ drones

Ukrainian drones were shown hitting two of Russia‘s so-called “shadow fleet” oil tankers in the Black Sea in footage released on Saturday.

Friday’s attack was carried out by the country’s security service and its navy, an official told Reuters. They said both ships “sustained critical damage” that took them out of service.

A security source told Associated Press that domestically-made “Sea Baby” drones were used.

The tankers were under sanctions and heading to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, the official said.

They have been identified as the Kairos and Virat.

The 274m-long Kairos suffered an explosion and caught fire en route from Egypt to Russia on Friday, Turkey’s transport ministry said. The crew was evacuated.

The Virat was reportedly struck about 35 nautical miles offshore.

It was attacked by unmanned vessels and sustained minor damage to its starboard side, the Turkish ministry said.

Russia deploys a fleet of often ageing, uninsured and unmarked tankers to circumvent sanctions on its oil exports, which continue to help pay for the Ukraine war.

Another Ukrainian attack halted operations at an oil terminal near the Russian port of Novorossiysk on Saturday.

Andriy Kovalenko, from Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said special forces were responsible.

“Naval drones managed to destroy one of the three oil tanker berths of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium in the Novorossiysk area,” he wrote on Telegram.

Six killed in aerial attacks on Ukraine

Russia carried out another onslaught on the Ukrainian capital overnight into Saturday, firing 36 cruise and ballistic missiles and launching around 600 drones.

Officials said three people were killed in and around Kyiv, two in the Dnipropetrovsk region and one in a midday attack in Kherson region in the south.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 29 others were injured in Kyiv, largely due to falling debris from intercepted drones hitting buildings.

The attacks also hit Ukrainian energy facilities and left hundreds of thousands without power in the capital. Supplies have since been restored.

Targeting such infrastructure has become a familiar tactic from Russia over the winter, in what Ukraine officials say is the “weaponising” of the cold.

Politics

Nasdaq crypto chief pledges to ‘move as fast as we can’ on tokenized stocks

Published

3 hours ago

November 30, 2025

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Nasdaq crypto chief pledges to ‘move as fast as we can’ on tokenized stocks

The US Nasdaq stock exchange is making SEC approval of its proposal to offer tokenized versions of stocks listed on the exchange a top priority, according to the exchange’s crypto chief.

“We’ll just move as fast as we can,” Nasdaq’s head of digital assets strategy, Matt Savarese, said during an interview with CNBC on Thursday, when asked whether the SEC could approve the proposal this year.

“I think what we have to really evaluate where the public comments come back in and then answer and respond to the SEC questions as they come through,” Savarese said. “We hope to kind of work with them as quickly as possible,” Savarese said.

Savarese says Nasdaq isn’t “upending the system”

The proposal, submitted by Nasdaq on Sept. 8, is requesting to allow investors to buy and sell stock tokens — digital representations of shares in publicly traded companies — on the exchange.

Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is not trying to overhaul the way stocks are invested in when asked whether he expects other major exchanges to follow suit.

Nasdaq, SEC, United States — *Nasdaq’s head of digital assets, Matt Savarese, spoke to CNBC on Thursday. Source:* *CNBC*

“We’re not looking at upending the system; we want everyone to come along for that ride and bring tokenization more into the mainstream,” he said.

“We want to do it in that responsible investor-led way first, under the SEC rules themselves,” he added.

It was only in October that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said that tokenization will “eventually eat the whole financial system.”

The crypto industry is divided on tokenized equities

Savarese emphasized that Nasdaq is aiming to be an innovator in the ecosystem, noting that the exchange was the first to transition markets from paper-based trading to electronic systems.

Tokenizing stocks has been one of the most significant talking points in the crypto industry this year.

On Sept. 3, Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said the company became the first Nasdaq-listed company to tokenize its equity on a major blockchain following its launch on the Solana network.

The conversation around tokenized equities has also drawn skepticism from the crypto industry.

On Oct. 1, Rob Hadick, general partner at crypto venture firm Dragonfly, told Cointelegraph that tokenized equities will be a significant benefit to traditional markets, but may not be a boon to the crypto industry as others have predicted.

Hadick said that if tokenized stocks use layer-2 networks, it creates “leakage” as value and may not flow back to Ethereum or the broader crypto ecosystem as much as hoped.

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