“Be the CEO. Money is your best employee,” reads the TikTok bio of Taylor Price, a twenty-five-year-old personal finance influencer who wants to “change the way Gen Z thinks about money.” Price’s philosophy is simple: financial freedom for her generation won’t come from a fat paycheck; it’ll be achieved by putting that paycheck to work through investment — and putting it to work as early as possible.
By the influencer’s calculations — outlined over a TikTok of her flat-ironing her glossy dark hair — if a twenty-one-year-old barista named Janelle earning an annual salary of $41,000 invests $350 each month, she’ll have amassed over $2 million by the age of sixty-five. Meanwhile, Ethan, an engineer earning $140,000 per annum who begins investing $1,000 per month at the age of forty, will, at sixty-five, have made just over $1 million. For Price, the clear winner is the person who retires with the highest final balance.
Of course, what Price’s logic leaves out is that wealth isn’t accumulated solely by saving or investing one’s own earnings. Her example assumes that there aren’t any other big differences between Janelle and Ethan. It could be the case that Janelle makes more than Ethan in the market by choosing to invest earlier. But let’s say Janelle’s only source of wealth is her investments, while Ethan is the only child of corporate lawyers who paid his college tuition, who have their own investment portfolios, and own three properties — all of which he stands to inherit one day. Not only will he retire far more comfortably and with fewer debts, but he’s also sacrificed a lower proportion of his higher salary over a shorter period to generate his own wealth.
Nevertheless, the logic of Price’s hypothetical is one that many Gen Zers — born between 1996 and 2010 — seem to find compelling, allowing it to shape their own investment habits. Using data collected from 13,000 investors across thirteen…
Auteur: Huda Awan
