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Millennials have higher average incomes and more wealth than Generation Xers had at the same age but are significantly more indebted, a new study by Statistics Canada has found.
Millennials – those born between 1982 and 1991 – are the most educated generation ever.
That education is thought to explain why they have a higher inflation-adjusted median household income than Gen Xers (1965 to 1971) or young boomers (1950 to 1961) did when they were the same age.
In 2016, the median household income for millennials aged between 25 and 34 was $66,500.
Among Gen Xers in 1999, that figure was $51,000.
But millennials are, on average, significantly more indebted than their forebears – particularly because of their mortgages.
Median mortgage debt for millennials aged between 30 and 34 is $218,000 – more than 2.5 times that age group’s median after-tax income ($83,000).
Young boomers, by contrast, had mortgage debt of $67,800 – about the same as their after-tax income.
Millennials' debt-income ratio is 216%, which far exceeds Gen Xers' at the same age (125%) and also young boomers' (80%).
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