By common American standards, an annual income of $100000 is typical of the middle class, but some "millennials" with sizeable incomes still feel like they are living on the brink of bankruptcy every day.
A recent survey by data research firm PYMNTS and LendingClub, the largest US peer-to-peer platform, found that 60 per cent of "millennials" (roughly equivalent to those born in the 1980s and 1990s) with an annual income of more than $100000 said they were "moonlight".
Overall, about 54 per cent of Americans belong to the "moonlight clan", and nearly 40 per cent of high earners (earning more than $100000 a year) say they lead such tight lives.
This means that high-income millennials are not the only ones who feel stressed, but they feel it more strongly than people of other ages. As a result, living on a tight budget may not be because of low income, but because of high expenses, the report says.
This is partly due to lifestyle choices. Many of these millennials may be HENRYs. The so-called "HENRYs" is an acronym for high earner not rich yet, an acronym that appeared in 2003 to describe a group of people in their 30s who earn six figures a year and struggle to balance their spending and saving habits.
The economic environment in the United States is also an important factor in the feeling of bankruptcy among six-figure millennials. As the report says, "living on salary sometimes means subsistence and poverty. But in the United States today, the reality of this salary-dependent way of life is much more complicated, and the current economic environment makes this way of life more complicated. "
The report cites, for example, a 35-year-old college student who earns more than $100000 a year and has to cope with mortgages, student loans and parenting, which may leave them with little savings to buy commodities or deal with emergencies.
This generation is facing a crisis of affordability. The increase in income simply cannot keep up with the exponential increase in the cost of living, and the unemployment and wage cuts caused by the epidemic are even worse.
The cost of education in the United States has more than doubled since the 1970s, saddling many millennials with student debt. Priya Malani Malani, founder of Stash Wealth, a financial company that mainly serves the Henry family, says 40 per cent of her clients have student loans, with an average debt of $80, 000.
America's middle class has been shrinking as a by-product of the rising cost of living. Pew defines the American middle class as people who earn 2/3 to twice the median household income-about $48500 to $145500 in 2018, according to the latest data available.