WSJ Your Money Briefing - Millennials Brace for Their Third Recession

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Millennials’ financial lives have been profoundly shaped by two economic events: the Great Recession of 2008 and the pandemic-era shutdowns. Now, the prospect of a third recession looms — what’s this generation to do? Host Julia Carpenter explores what this could mean for millennials and their ability to prepare for the future.  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. Here's your money briefing for Thursday, June 26th. I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal. 2008, 2020. These recessions cast a long shadow over millennials' financial lives. And now the prospect of a third recession looms large. Yes, there have been times before when there's three recessions in a 15, 20 year period. However, to have two of those three just be so consequential, not only economically, but consequential

just to the way that people live their day to day lives, that I think is pretty unique. That's Jesse Kramer, a 35 year old relationship manager at Cobblestone Capital Advisors in Rochester, New York. Jesse and I are both millennials. We were just young enough that we weren't job hunting between 2007 and 2009, but the 2020 recession hit exactly in time to decimate the start of what were supposed to be our high earning years.

And now, in the midst of the Trump administration's trade war, stubbornly high grocery prices, and a rougher than usual job market, we millennials are staring down yet another possible recession. And I'll be honest, I'm terrified. And remember, two negative quarters is how we traditionally define a recession. Okay? So it's not good. We are worried that we are gonna slip into a recession

as we get into the summer. We've talked about it. The uncertainty and this avalanche that's created, it's likely a recession. That's what's likely in the cards. We'll explore the question my friends and I have all been asking each other. Are we seriously about to go through another recession?

That's after the break. I was in high school when the 2008 financial crash happened. 12 years later, I was about to celebrate my 30th birthday when the coronavirus pandemic shut down my workplace, the markets, and the world. The long-term effects the Great Recession had on Millennials earning power and our ability to build wealth has been well documented by researchers and economists. But in my own life, looking at my friends and peers, I've seen it firsthand. Jesse K my own life, looking at my friends and peers, I've seen it firsthand.

Jesse Kramer is a relationship manager at Cobblestone Capital Advisors, and he joins me to talk more. Jesse, I know we both have such vivid memories of the 2008 financial crisis. I was in high school at the time, and I wrote an article for my student newspaper all about how the crash was affecting

my local babysitting business because all of the neighbors who I relied on for babysitting were tightening their budgets, going out less, and I noticed that it was affecting me. So the ripple effects weren't small. They were something that reverberated throughout the rest of our financial lives. I was the same age, 17, 18, and 2007, 2008.

I remember my dad watching Jim Cramer on CNBC. No relation to me for what it's worth. I have vivid memories of that. My senior year of high school, we took government and economics as these two partner classes. And in economics, we played the stock market game. But when it came to nuts and bolts, it's just one of the things that especially with zooming out through time is how, yes, of course, the stock market had this crash and people's 401ks were really damaged by it. But a lot of people also lost jobs and simultaneously some people lost housing. And so those things occurring simultaneously must have made such a huge impact on those families.

When I was researching this story, actually looking at the historical data through recessions in two decades is not that unusual. And I can tell you that now that my story has published, I've seen so many people in my comments and in my emails telling me that it's not unusual. But even though other generations have experienced this, what do you think it is that makes the recessions you and I remember such unique events? Maybe though, if we talk about magnitude or like scope of these recessions, that's where we can kind of separate some of the wheat from the chaff.

And what I mean by that is a lot of the number of recessions since World War II over the last 50 years, many of them have just been like, yeah, GDP did shrink for a few quarters and unemployment went up a little bit, but it's not like there was some massive proximate cause that just sticks out in our memory. The great financial crisis, quite literally, was almost the crumbling of the global financial system. It's hard to really describe the magnitude of that event, two of us just talking over the internet right now. The global financial system almost broke down

and we went back into the dark ages. And then with COVID, okay, it wasn't as bad a pandemic as the world has seen before, but global pandemic is pretty bad. So to your point, yes, there have been times before when there's three recessions in a 15, 20 year period. However, to have two of those three just be so consequential, not only economically, but consequential just to the way that people live their day to day lives, that I think is pretty unique. You raised the prospect, this thing that everyone's been fearing, this third recession, likely prompted by trade war concerns, various other things happening in the economy.

What do you hear from friends and clients who are also millennials, who are in the same boat as you and me? Are they worried about this? Are they trying not to think about it? Are they confused about it? Where are their heads right now? The concern is cash flow. The concern is over the next 12 to 24 months,

if this recession takes place, if some more people in our community end up losing their jobs, will I still be able to kind of support my household for the next 24 months? If they're in their early, mid 30s, early 40s, okay, retirement is still 20 years away. But what they're saying is my household prepared for maybe one of the two income earners to lose their job or having to take a pay cut? Those are the kind of things that people are trying to build a buffer for that is the right

way to be thinking about this. I also wonder, is there a way to thrive despite the circumstances? What's the best case scenario for making it through a third recession? Certainly controlling what you can control and trying to not let the things that are out of your control completely eat away at you.

And if that sounds a little bit like philosophy 101 or some sort of like stoic mindset, it probably is. But there's some truth to that idea of there are only so many things in your financial life that you truly can control. You can control what your household spends to some end. Obviously some things are pretty non-negotiable. Even if this third recession for Millennials comes true, even if it comes through here in 2025, maybe it happened in 2026, maybe it doesn't happen at all.

But if it does happen, it is important that we realize that not every recession has to be the almost end of the world like the global financial crisis was. And so hopefully we take it in stride. We build a little padding and margin of safety into our lives and we come out the other side, maybe not stronger, but at least not completely broken by it. That's Jesse Kramer, relationship manager at Cobblestone Capital Advisors in Rochester, New York. And that's it for your money briefing.

We had additional production help from Coleman Standifer. This episode was produced by Ariana Asperu with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.