Amid growing economic pressure, Americans in the Gen Z and millennial generations are struggling to save money. According to a new report, 42% said they are living paycheck to paycheck.
This “Retirement Survey & Insights Report 2025” from Goldman Sachs included data from 5,102 individuals surveyed in July 2025 across generations. Overall, 58% of the respondents said they expect to outlive their savings.
Why are so many Americans worried about this?
“The cost of basic needs has increased dramatically since 2000, outpacing by far the median wage growth,” Goldman Sachs explained. “As the cost of expenses such as housing, childcare, education and healthcare has grown, it has narrowed the gap between income and expenses, leaving little to save for retirement.”
Fears about retirement savings have been growing for some time. Last summer, Audacy reported on research that indicated retirement was becoming a “luxury” that more and more people aren’t able to afford.
When the data from Goldman Sachs’ new survey was broken down by generation, it showed that boomers were the least likely to be living paycheck to paycheck at 18%. Millennials were the most likely to at 45%, followed by Gen X at 41% and Gen Z at 39%. Gen Z (born between the late 1990s and early 2010s) and millennials (born between 1980 and the mid-1990s) combined had a paycheck to paycheck rate of 42%.
Living paycheck to paycheck can prevent people from saving money for retirement or big life events such as buying a home or having children, Goldman Sachs said. Of all generations who said they were living paycheck to paycheck, 87% said that having too many monthly expenses was impacting their ability to save.
Despite reporting that they are living paycheck to paycheck, Goldman Sachs said Gen Z and millennials are actually “demonstrating solid progress relative to their benchmarks,” towards saving compared to Gen X and working baby boomers. It said Gen Xers might have fallen behind since they were the first generation to “navigate a retirement system largely without traditional pensions.”
Still, it said younger cohorts are vulnerable to what it called the “Financial Vortex” – a set of structural shifts in household finances that have “reshaped how savers must prepare for retirement.” These include housing, healthcare, debt service, and care giving costs.
Currently, Americans trying to save are dealing with lingering inflation that shot up during the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, interest rates that went up in an attempt to tame the inflation, new economic uncertainty related to President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and a government shutdown. A new jobs report was set to be released this week, and CNN reported that lawmakers are calling for it to be released even if the government remains shut down. ADP Research recently released a report that private employers shed 32,000 jobs last month, indicating the U.S. employers have been cautious with hiring.