Why Millennials Choose To Join Corporate America Over Becoming Entrepreneurs

Millennials have a reputation for ditching their nine-to-fives for entrepreneurship. But in terms of young people actually going out to start their own businesses, this perception is very different from reality.

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Leveraging Psychological Insights to Encourage the Responsible Use of Consumer Debt

U.S. consumers currently hold $880 billion in revolving debt, with a mean household credit card balance of approximately $6,000. Although economic factors play a role in this societal issue, it is clear that psychological forces also affect consumers’ decisions to take on and maintain unmanageable debt balances. We examine three psychological barriers to the responsible use of credit and debt.

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The new economic face of marriage

The new economic face of marriage: CBS Moneywatch describes how marriage in the US is becoming another example of the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots in America.

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U.S. Census Bureau Housing Data

Each year, the US Census Bureau collects data on housing in America. Their data and findings on ownership, renting, house financing, construction, and household makeup are available here.

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Is student loan debt associated with less retirement savings?

Rising student debt levels mean that young workers must reduce either their consumption or their saving. To what extent do these workers cut back on retirement saving?

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Not all Millennials have it rough, only those who majored in liberal arts

Since the Great Recession, a powerful and occasionally terrifying narrative about the state of recent college graduates has emerged: Many young, educated 20-somethings are languishing in the purgatory of unpaid internships. Those who have managed to find jobs earn wages whose meagerness stands in stark contrast to their student debt. Even now, seven years after the Great Recession, about half of young college graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 are said to be “underemployed”—working in a job that hasn’t historically required a college degree—including, most prototypically, that infamous caricature, the College-Educated Barista.

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Teaching children to save in elementary school curricula

The Center for Financial Security recently completed an evaluation of My Classroom Economy(MCE), an innovative approach to financial education. In contrast to more traditional financial education programs based around lesson plans, MCE is experiential. Teachers establish a classroom-based economy that integrates into the school day as a classroom management system. Research suggests that this type of experiential approach is a promising teaching strategy, with the added benefit of minimizing time away from other classroom activities.

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Employee Financial Literacy and Retirement Plan Behavior: A Case Study

This article uses administrative data on all active employees of the Federal Reserve (FR) System to examine participation in and contributions to the Thrift Saving Plan, the System’s defined contribution (DC) plan. We link to administrative records a unique employee survey of economic/demographic factors including a set of financial literacy questions. Not surprisingly, FR employees are substantially more…

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Landlord Nation: Boomers’ New Retirement Plan Is Millennials Paying Rent

Landlord Nation: Boomers’ New Retirement Plan Is Millennials Paying Rent: This Bloomberg article explains how the foreclosure crisis has created new intergenerational dynamics around renting.

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Planning Ahead or Living a Day at a Time? A Family History of AD and Retirement Planning

An Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis has consequences that can extend beyond the individual to family members. These impacts, which are especially strong for caregivers, include worries about the health of the affected relative, changes in the caregiver’s health (eg, risk of depression), and/or distress regarding what the diagnosis portends for the caregiver’s own future health or that of other relatives. Family members may also experience…

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