Trade Talk: Money can’t buy happiness for Millennials. Or can it?

In a December New Yorker article (“Killing it”), Jia Tolentino gave a Millennial’s view on theories about Millennials, focusing on some of the economic impacts and implications of how Millennials have been raised and how they view work and money.

It’s a great read, more for the points it raises rather than the questions it answers, but some of her points resonated as I read press materials on a Wells Fargo study of Millennials and their conflicting and conflicted views of their financial lives.

Using data from a Harris Poll conducted on its behalf, Wells Fargo found that though they clearly don’t view money as the key to happiness, Millennials also seem to worry a great deal about it. While 62 percent of those surveyed described themselves as very “happy” and 65 percent said their life is “meaningful,” 69 percent said they want to get over their “anxiety” about money and only a third said they were “satisfied” with their financial life. At the same time, 98 percent of this generation also said feeling “financially secure” is important to them, along with feeling physically (97 percent) and mentally (97 percent) healthy.

Nearly half (46 percent) of Millennials surveyed said they have a significant amount of debt and similar percentages said that they can’t afford to pay for health care (43 percent) and that they rely on others (friends, family, spouse) for support (42 percent).

Yet 88 percent said they see success as more about being “happy” and less about “material prosperity” and a quarter of Millennials said, “I don’t care about money.”

When asked to identify activities they actively engage in to make themselves happier, spending time with family (72 percent) and friends (61 percent) and helping others (59 percent) were highest.

Correspondingly, regarding areas in life that bring satisfaction, the three with the highest levels of satisfaction among Millennials were family relationships (56 percent), intellectual life (52 percent) and recreation and hobbies (50 percent).

Love and relationships were the top drivers of happiness for all Millennials. Respondents were given a choice of five words and asked to select the word they most associated with happiness and love took the top spot: “love” (62 percent), “doing good” (23 percent), “money” (10 percent), “work” (4 percent) and “power” (1 percent).

“The more active this generation is with their finances, the happier they are – and this was proven out by the group of Millennials who affirm all five statements in what we are calling the Positive Financial Indicator,” said Kristi Mitchem, CEO of Wells Fargo Asset Management, in a press release. “What’s interesting about this is it’s not clear that Millennials recognize how being proactive with finances leads to happiness.”

The five statements about financial engagement in the Positive Financial Indicator (PFI) – I have enough money to be able to save for future needs; I am saving enough for retirement; I feel in control of my financial life; I take an active role in setting and achieving goals for my financial life; I am able to pay for my monthly expenses – were highly correlated in the study and when looked at in aggregate, were also a driver of happiness. Out of the entire population, the 36 percent of Millennials who affirmed all five aspects of engagement in the PFI are happier than those who do not.

“It’s great to see the bright outlook of the Millennial generation and that happiness is about the deep bonds of friendship and family and not explicitly about money. At the same time, this generation has a chance to become happier by taking specific actions – such as saving and planning for the future – that will benefit this group at large and lead to greater happiness,” said Mitchem.

Conducted by Harris Poll June 16-29, 2017, on behalf of Wells Fargo, the results of the 2017 Wells Fargo Millennial Study are based on an online survey of 1,771 Millennials (ages 20-36), 26 percent of whom are affluent, have $100,000 or more in investable assets (earning a median personal income of $88,000) and 74 percent of whom are non-affluent with less than $100,000 in investable assets (earning a median personal income of $43,000). Head to https://goo.gl/wZ4ykU for more complete information on the study.