Acorns’ recent report shows 1/3 of young adults fear becoming homeless and issues like global conflicts and climate change have an impact on their financial insecurity!

Acorns, a leading saving and investing app, has recently released their 2024 Money Matters Report. The study highlights that, while adults have always worried about having enough retirement savings and emergency funds, about a third of young adults surveyed, especially Gen Z and Millennials (29% and 32% respectively), are increasingly concerned about the possibility of becoming homeless due to their financial situations, which is almost three times higher than older generations like Boomers (11%).

The main reasons behind this fear are the high cost of living, inflation, and debt. Surprisingly, in addition to that, more than a quarter of Americans (27%) don’t have an emergency fund. Acorns CEO, Noah Kerner, points out that this fear is justified given the uncertainties like job security, income stability, and borrowing conditions.

This concern is further accentuated by the rising number of homeless people in recent years, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Their 2023 point-in-time report counted 653,104 homeless Americans, reaching a 12.1% increase from the same report in 2022.

Beyond these circumstances, people are also worried about the impact of broader issues on their financial security, like global war (with 25% saying they are “extremely concerned” and only 8% saying they were “not concerned at all”), the rise of artificial intelligence (39% are “extremely concerned”), and climate change (42% ).

“Between global conflicts, AI and climate change, we’re in a time that feels uncertain and unstable. These problems are coming at us from all different directions and its a natural outcome for people to have a heightened degree of anxiety.” Kerner says.

Unfortunately, only 35% of those people think that they would be more financially secure next year than they are currently, while most people (44%) expect their financial security to be about the same, suggesting that these anxieties will continue to take a toll one them.

Despite these worries, the report helps reinforce that early financial education can significantly improve future security, with two-thirds (66%) of suerveyed Americans reporting they’d be better off today if they had more financial education earlier in life.

“Since it’s not being taught in schools, most grow up without the necessary foundation to manage their personal finances”, Kerner says.