Gen Z has been labeled many things: digital natives, TikTok champions, the anxious generation. But perhaps no connotation has stuck quite like financially anxious. Headlines regularly paint this cohort as stressed about money, risk-averse, and paralyzed by economic uncertainty. As someone who’s spent nearly a decade building a new generation of financial products, I think we’re missing the real story.
Yes, Gen Z exhibits financial anxiety—but not in the way most people think. Instead of assuming that they don’t understand money, perhaps we should question if they understand it more deeply.
