Ideas Emerging

“Winning the Game of Life: What Financial Challenges Face Today’s Young Adults?”

Owing largely to their age, young adults typically have earned less money and controlled less wealth than older individuals. Over time those income and wealth gaps would disappear as individuals and their families prospered. Recent evidence, however, suggests that this no longer may be the case and that the income and wealth gaps among generations actually are growing wider. Today, the typical family headed by a person between the ages of 35 and 39 has a net worth of $49,000, compared to $250,000 for a family headed by a person between the ages of 55 and 59.

What explains this growing imbalance? Is it that young people do not know how to manage their incomes responsibly, or have structural changes and shifts in public policies made it harder for young people and their families to prosper? What impacts have the escalating cost of higher education, rising housing prices, income trends, increasing job instability and the availability of retirement and health care benefits had on the prospects of younger people? And, what do these trends mean for the future?

Join the ETHL Discussion Group for a conversation devoted to the financial realities facing young adults striving to build prosperous lives for themselves. Click here for an article from USA Today that provides a short overview of the kinds of questions that will be discussed.

Date: July 10, 2007
Time: 6:30 pm until 8:00 PM
Place: New World Coffee House, 4122-134 Pleasant Valley Road, Raleigh, NC
RSVP: registration@ethl.org