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America's generational middle child is feeling the squeeze.
A growing subset of Gen Xers — who were born between 1965 and 1980, and are 44 to 59 years old — are struggling to pay their bills, picking up additional work, and cutting down spending on necessities, a new Philadelphia Fed survey shows.
That doesn't leave much space for discretionary spending, which could be adding to their lagging sentiment.
Meanwhile, the generations on either side are faring well. Millennials have seen a wealth boom in recent years driven by real estate and stock market returns, and baby boomers also have their pensions.
While Gen X saw their own gains from stock and real estate booms, they're also still stuck in an expensive middle-age phase, dealing with their own debts, preparing for retirement, and shouldering the burden of their children and parents.
Gen Xers are struggling with their personal finances across a variety of measures, a survey of around 5,000 respondents from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found.
As of October 2024, a quarter of Americans 46 to 55 were skipping some debts or monthly bills.
For some Gen Xers, that might mean skipping out on spending on some of life's more enjoyable things. Since the Philadelphia Fed's LIFE survey first began, the share of 46 to 55-year-olds cutting back on discretionary spending has grown. As of October 2024, over half of that surveyed age group said they were cutting back on discretionary spending.
"I rarely go out or buy new things or nice things. I usually shop for clothes secondhand, and the expenses that I'm really worried about — and they're just increasing — are my medical expenses," Wendy Graham, a Gen Xer in Philadelphia who works in the nonprofit sector, told BI.
Barbara Lose, a 57-year-old Gen Xer in Florida, said that she is struggling to pay rent; she lost her job over the summer.
"I just want to go through life and have a job where I can make enough money to go out to dinner and have a couple glasses of wine once a week. That's all I want out of life," Lose said. "I want to be able to pay my bills and take myself out to dinner once a week. I don't think that's asking too much, but apparently, it is these days."
Of course, cutting back on discretionary spending may not be all bad. As a Bank of America Institute research note finds, Gen X has seen its discretionary spending drop the most of all generations. The analysis attributes that, in part, to Gen Xers trying to sock away more for retirement and investing more.
Gen Xers do have the highest income of the generations, raking in a mean of $136,776 annually, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Surveys found. They also have, on average, $157,556 in total debt — the highest among the generations.
"I'm still to this day paying off student loans," Graham said.
But as Bank of America notes, Gen X is in the "sandwich" phase of life: Some are juggling supporting adult children and elderly relatives. Their sandwich stage comes as more parents are also supporting their young adult children.
"I know a lot of people that are in this situation that are my age, they're really getting squished between having to take care of their children and having to take care of their parents," Graham said. That could be putting pressure on spending on necessities. Nearly a third of Americans ages 46 to 55 were cutting back on essential spending as of October 2024, the Philadelphia Fed's survey found.
"I had to have some dental care done last year. I owe about $800 for that," Graham said. "So there just isn't enough. There's not enough extra to go around, and healthcare costs are just continuing to increase. I don't see any relief from that in the future."
All of those factors taken together might explain another Gen X phenomenon: taking on more work. While 18- to 35-year-olds were still the most likely to say that they took on an additional job as a form of financial coping, the share of 46- to 55-year-olds doing the same has increased by a little over half since January 2023.
"We're still a very adaptable generation," Lose, who's on the hunt for work, said. "I still have a lot of great ideas and energy and willingness to work in this body of mine."
It's no wonder, then, that Gen X's vibes are not so great. Elder millennials' and Gen Xers' consumer sentiment is the lowest among the different age cohorts captured by the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey.
Are you a Gen Xer struggling to make ends meet or feeling forgotten? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.
