As debt in the U.S. continues to increase, a White House economist is warning of the impact it could have on Generation Z. According to Todd Buchholz, White House director of economic policy under President George H.W. Bush, Gen Z is now forced to deal with the debt levels imposed on it by preceding generations, and this debt is adding to the challenges Gen Z faces in paying for daily expenses and affording housing, Yahoo! Finance reports.
The likes of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have sounded the alarm on U.S. debt recently. But Buchholz highlighted the consequences Gen Z in particular faces.
"Half of young adults don’t think they will ever afford a home, yet they will be asked to pay for their grandparents’ profligacy," he wrote in an op-ed for Project Syndicate on Wednesday.
The U.S. had an opportunity to improve the debt outlook, but passed up on it, Buchholz explained. For years after the Great Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus kept yields on Treasury bonds at rock-bottom lows, meaning the interest on U.S. debt was historically cheap.
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