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Wealthsimple Survey Finds Money is Over Six Times More Likely Than Politics to Cause the Most Stress for Millennials

Staff Report

Friday, June 29th, 2018

Wealthsimple, a digital investment service focused on making investing accessible to everyone, released the results of its recent survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll, of more than 600 millennials' attitudes towards money and investing. The findings reveal that even though 92 percent of millennial Americans (ages 21-37) currently save, only about one third (35%) invest outside of an employee-sponsored retirement plan, compared to approximately half of Gen Xers (ages 38-53; 48%) and Boomers (ages 54-72; 46%). The study also found far fewer millennial women (26%) than men (43%) in that age group are investing.

Key findings for millennials:

Money is Life's Biggest Stress

  • More than twice as many millennials cited money (40%) as causing them the most stress compared with work (18%), health (10%) and politics (6%)

  • 92 percent of millennials are currently saving, but only about one third (35%) invest outside of an employee-sponsored retirement plan

  • 30 percent of millennials who do not currently invest beyond an employee-sponsored retirement plan say their barrier to investing is that they don't know how to get started

  • Over one quarter of millennials (26%) would give up sex for a year and 40 percent would give up all social media for a year to retire by age 50

Millennials Want Their Investments to Be Good for the World

  • 4 out of 5 millennials (80%) say if they were going to select an investment portfolio, it would be important to them to know that the companies they are investing in are socially responsible prior to making their selection

  • Millennials named renewable energy (44%), followed by fair labor practices (41%), gender equality (36%) and poverty reduction (36%), as top issues they'd want companies they invest in to support

  • 42 percent of millennial women would want to invest in a company that supports gender equality, compared to 32 percent of millennial men

Women Invest Less, Stress More About Money

  • Only 26 percent of millennial women invest outside of an employer-sponsored retirement plan, compared with 43 percent of men the same age

  • 47 percent of millennial women consider money the most stressful thing in their life, compared to 34 percent of millennial men

"Money and investing are the cause of so much anxiety for so many people, and as the results show, young people especially," said Michael Katchen, CEO and co-founder, Wealthsimple. "The reason we started Wealthsimple is to reach people who want to invest but don't, because they feel intimidated by the investment process or don't meet the high minimums a lot of advisors require. Our goal is to flip these statistics by empowering a new generation of investors to have candid conversations about money and feel confident they're doing the right thing with their finances."