A lot of people have held the belief for a long time that millennials want nothing to do with credit cards and that they practically flee from the very thought of them. However, that is not truly the case. This stereotype has been ginned up in the media over the years and has led to a lot of confusion among people. They want to know if millennials actually do carry a lot of credit cards or not. It turns out that older millennials do.
More Cards Than Any Other Age Group
What may come as a surprise to you is the fact that older millennials (those who are between the ages of 30 and 38) actually carry more credit cards than any other age group in the United States. So much for the idea that millennials hate credit cards!
It appears that once millennials reach a certain age when they have more confidence in the stability of their career that they do want to take out credit cards to create a more flexible financial life for themselves and their families.
Laws Could Be Impacting The Numbers
One of the reasons why it seems that the media was so quick to rush to the idea that millennials do not like credit cards is because of the impact of a law passed during the Great Recession that made it more difficult for younger millennials to get credit cards in the first place. This law is known as the CARD Act and was intended to make it more difficult to get a credit card if you do not have a lengthy credit history. Of course, the kind of people who don’t have a lengthy credit history tend to be younger people (aka younger millennials).
The reality is that many younger millennials might also want to have credit cards to their names but are unable to get them simply because they do not have the credit history that is required. This single law could be skewing the numbers that we have all been assuming reflected millennial attitudes towards credit cards and debt in general.
How Many Cards Is The Average Older Millennial Carrying?
It turns out that the average older millennial is actually carrying somewhere around 3.9 credit cards in their wallet. That is a lot higher than younger millennials who only have an average of about one.
Other generations like the baby boomers and Gen X have numbers that are comparable to older millennials but are slightly lower. This may be because people in those generations have had established careers for a longer period of time and may be able to better afford to pay down and close out their cards as they go along. Another aspect of the difference may just be a reflection of better marketing tactics by the credit card companies over they years to reach out to more and more customers. They may simply be getting better at what they are doing and doing well.