Hey you! You with the mountains of student loans, credit card debt, and a misplaced sense of optimism about the job market! Have you ever gotten the feeling that our generation seems to be a lot worse off than our parents at this age? Well, turns out you may be right.

According to a new study, Generation Y (roughly 1980-2000, also known as Millenials) is in terrible financial shape, thanks to both the recession and the questionable spending habits that we learned growing up in an era of credit cards. We are getting the shit end of the stick in multiple ways: low wages, decreases in employer-sponsored health and retirement benefits, rising costs of basic necessities, an overall lack of savings, and heaps of debt are all realities that we are beginning to face. The study suggests that without a solid financial start, Gen Y might be the first in over a century to not end up economically better off than our parents.

Here are some of the more sobering statistics (quoted directly from the article):

I think our financial insecurity can be summed up in two words: credit cards. Yes, the recession really screwed us over, but if we had more conservative spending habits and a greater appreciation for cash we might not be in such bad shape. We grew up with credit cards and are in love with the idea of getting something now and paying for it later. Who wouldn’t be? It’s an invisible transaction, and because you’re not actually parting with any cash at that point, you don’t feel like you’ve actually spent anything. Now you can go spend some more!

I’m not saying everyone with a piece of plastic is like this, but I still think it’s an alarming trend. Too much credit card debt at this stage in the game can seriously damage your credit rating and make life a lot harder down the road. It’s all well and good to point to the recession as the ultimate source of our financial misfortune, but the situation is at least partly of our own making.

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