A Congressional report released Tuesday found that millennials are not feeling the impacts of the economic recovery.
The Joint Economic Committee’s report added to what’s become a long list of economic data showing that millennials are delaying major life decisions such as buying a home and getting married.
{mosads}In 2003, nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 headed a household. In 2013, the rate declined to 37.2 percent.
Meanwhile, the percentage of millennials living with their parents has increased from 11 percent before the recession to 14 percent, according to the report.
The report also found that household income adjusted for inflation for Americans aged 25 to 34 declined by more than 10 percent.
While the national unemployment rate remains at 5.8 percent, millennial unemployment is at nearly 17 percent — 5 percentage points higher than the prerecession 12 percent jobless rate for the young.
The report found that American millennials are also more educated than any other previous generation. Sixty-three percent of them have at least some college education. That’s an 11-percentage-point increase from the 52 percent of Americans in that same age bracket who had some level of college education in 1994.
Such bleak economic conditions can have long-lasting impacts.
According to the report: “Even if young people land new, better-paying jobs at some point, lower earnings earlier in their careers may result in permanently lower retirement savings and net worth than might have been the case if economic conditions had been better when they first entered the labor force.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the vice chairwoman of the Joint Economic Committee, said the report shows a need for lawmakers to reform student loan programs.
“The success of our younger generations is critical to our country’s future. Millennials are the most-educated generation in history, but many of them still face challenges because they entered the workforce during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” said Klobuchar, who has been mentioned as a possible future Democratic presidential candidate.