What makes millennials the most stressed group in the US?
American's are quite stressed out in general. A new study found that millennials had higher stress than any other generation in the nation.
The results were published in 'Stress in America: Paying with Our Health' by the American Psychological Association (APA) and released on Wednesday. To gather information, Harris Poll spoke with 3,068 American adults in August 2014.
The poll found that 72 percent of Americans reported feeling stressed about money at least some of the time during the previous month. Some 22 percent said they experienced extreme stress about money during that period (an 8.9 or 10 on a 10-point scale).
Meanwhile, 64 percent of Americans said that money was a somewhat or very significant source of stress, especially for parents (77 percent), young adults (75 percent of 18 to 35-year-olds) and 67 percent of Gen Xers (36 to 49 years old).
"Despite the good news that overall stress levels are down, it appears that the idea of living with stress higher than what we believe to be healthy and dealing with it in ineffective ways continues to be embedded in our culture," said APA CEO Norman Anderson.
"All Americans, and particularly those groups that are most affected by stress - which include women, younger adults and those with lower incomes - need to address this issue sooner than later in order to better their health and well-being."
However, the millennials generation - defined as people ages 18-35 - had the highest "stress level". Members of the group have an overall stress level of 5.5 on the 1-10 scale - the highest rate of any American age group.
Experts say the anxiety comes from millennials' high unemployment rates which is almost 15 percent compared with the 5.6% national average, and average starting salaries in the ramen-and-Bud range.
"It's very hard to be a millennial in this generation," says American Psychological Association veep Dr. Norman Anderson. "In the past, when you reached the age of 18 or 20, your prospects for gaining a foothold in the American economy and establishing yourself as an adult were much easier."
