BlackRock’s Larry Fink Said Gen Z And Millennials Are ‘Economically Anxious’ For A Reason. They Blame Boomers For Focusing Only On Themselves – BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)
- Personal Finance
ThePostMaster- 0
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BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) CEO Larry Fink has been open about what’s going wrong when it comes to younger generations and money stress. Fink said in his 2024 annual letter to investors that Gen Z and Millennials felt “economically anxious” because, in their view, older generations built systems that worked for themselves and left everyone else to figure it out.
Fink doesn’t dismiss that frustration. He agrees with it.
He wrote that younger Americans believe Baby Boomers “have focused on their own financial well-being to the detriment of who comes next,” adding plainly, “And in the case of retirement, they’re right.”
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Why Retirement Feels Broken For Younger Americans
Fink’s argument starts with a simple reality: people are living much longer, but retirement systems haven’t kept up.
Fink says that the message many workers receive today is effectively: you’re on your own. Unlike past generations, fewer workers have pensions that promise steady income for life. Instead, they’re handed 401(k)s and told to save, invest, and somehow guess how long their money needs to last.
Fink connects that pressure directly to generational anger. Millennials and Gen Z aren’t just stressed about money today. They’re worried the future is stacked against them.
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Fear, Not Laziness, Is Holding People Back
Fink says the biggest barrier to investing isn’t ignorance or apathy. It’s fear.
“No one lets their money sit in a stock or a bond for 30 or 40 years if they’re afraid the future is going to be worse than the present,” he wrote.
When people lose faith that tomorrow will be better, they stop investing and start hoarding cash. According to Fink, countries with low confidence tend to have extremely high savings rates, with money sitting idle instead of being put to work.
He worries the U.S. is heading in that direction as young Americans are far less hopeful than prior generations, with many questioning whether life even has purpose. That loss of optimism is the most troubling trend he’s seen in nearly 50 years in finance.
“If future generations don’t feel hopeful about this country and their future in it,” he writes, “then the U.S. doesn’t only lose the force that makes people want to invest. America will lose what makes it America.”
Fink doesn’t let his own generation off the hook. He acknowledges that Social Security was designed for a time when many workers never lived long enough to collect benefits. Today, couples in their mid-60s have a strong chance that at least one spouse will still be receiving checks at 90.
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The math no longer works the way it once did. Fink says clinging to outdated assumptions, like a fixed retirement age set generations ago, is unrealistic. He argues the U.S. needs a serious, high-level effort to modernize retirement so younger workers aren’t left carrying the burden.
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“I hear it from nearly every client, nearly every leader—nearly every person—I talk to: They’re more anxious about the economy than any time in recent memory,” Fink reinforced his point in last year’s letter. “I understand why. But we have lived through moments like this before. And somehow, in the long run, we figure things out.”
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