How Millennials Have Thrived in the Five Years Since Covid-19

March 11, 2025, will mark five years since the World Health Organization proclaimed Covid-19 a pandemic. For many of us, life has changed significantly in that time, and so have our finances. Since March 2020 we’ve lived through a wide range of macroeconomic shifts: the onset of the pandemic brought a swift and sharp decline in the S&P 500® that took the index into a brief bear market, followed by multiple years of double-digit market appreciation, a return to zero interest rate policy, the highest inflation rates in decades, and then a rapid increase in interest rates in response. It has been an eventful half decade, yet market uncertainty still remains. Today’s investors face new macroeconomic conditions that could reshape the years ahead. 

Unfamiliar market environments often fuel the narrative that millennials are falling behind financially. Covid-19, specifically, was painted as yet another unprecedented moment in history threatening to set millennials back further behind other age groups. But when we looked back at the data over the past five years, we found a very different story: Millennials have not only weathered the post-pandemic years, but have accumulated wealth even faster than older generations. According to Federal Reserve data, millennials’ total net worth has nearly quadrupled since 2019, growing from $3.94 trillion in Q3 2019 to $15.95 trillion in Q3 2024. We’re seeing the same pattern among our clients, and we aren’t surprised. 

We have long believed in the success of millennials, and we’ve had a front-row seat to their successes since Wealthfront first launched over a decade ago. We are especially impressed with their resilience over the past five years and know it will serve them well going forward. The saving and investing habits of our millennial clients show a generation making smart choices and working toward financial freedom even in the face of uncertainty. 

Millennial wealth has grown significantly since Covid-19

As of January 1, 2020, our millennial clients had an average of $45,600 saved and invested in their Wealthfront accounts. Today, that same cohort of clients has grown their wealth by 137% to $108,130 on average. Notably, these numbers only reflect assets held in Wealthfront accounts, and don’t include assets in 401(k) plans, equity compensation, real estate holdings, or other external accounts. And millennial asset growth is clearly outpacing older generations: Over the same time period, wealth held by Gen X and baby boomer clients grew by 76% and 40%, respectively. 

We also found something interesting when we took a closer look at our higher net worth clients. We looked specifically at clients with $1 million or more across their Wealthfront accounts—what we’ve termed “Wealthfront millionaires.” Over the last five years, the proportion of millennial clients who are Wealthfront millionaires increased by 144%, far outpacing Gen Xers despite spending fewer years working to accumulate wealth. For comparison, among Gen Xers the proportion of Wealthfront millionaires only increased by 31% over the same time period, and decreased among baby boomers (likely caused by hitting retirement age). 

What’s driving this increase in millennial wealth?

Time-tested investing strategies

Millennials have demonstrated a strong commitment to saving and investing over the past five years, and have been well served by making steady investments over time: The average total balance of millennial clients’ taxable investment accounts increased by more than 100% from March 2020 to February 2025 (including assets held in Wealthfront and external linked accounts).

To build long-term wealth, it’s important to be able to stick to your strategy through periods of volatility. Our data shows that our millennials clients are putting this into practice even more than other generations. Notably, when Covid-19 roiled financial markets in March 2020, the average monthly net deposits for millennials remained much steadier than those of older generations. By investing with a long-term mindset, millennial clients have benefited from strong market appreciation over the last five years, as well as the ability to harvest tax losses during periods of market volatility.

Millennials are also strong adopters of index investing and diversification: Our millennial clients hold more than 90% of their invested Wealthfront assets in our globally diversified portfolios of low-cost ETFs. And millennials who kept their short-term savings in a Wealthfront Cash Account further benefited from earning more interest than they would have with a traditional savings account. Our Cash Account clients have consistently earned nearly 10x the national savings interest rate from our network of program banks, helping them take home more than $1.7 billion in interest in 2024 alone.    

Planning proactively for retirement

Despite elevated inflation over the last few years, millennials are still saving for retirement. Since March 2020, the average millennial Wealthfront IRA has grown by more than 110%, driven by both market appreciation and clients’ ongoing IRA contributions. This is more than double the growth in IRA balances held by Gen X.

Climbing the property ladder

Another way millennials are building wealth is by adding real estate to their portfolios. The Wall Street Journal reports that millennials’ housing wealth grew by $2.5 trillion between 2020 and 2024, even after accounting for the additional mortgage debt they took on. Recent jumps in home prices have benefited our clients, too. According to external mortgage data linked within Wealthfront, the average home value for millennial clients increased by more than 40% between March 2020 and February 2025. This surpasses the home value growth of older generations: Over the same time period, homes owned by Gen X and baby boomers appreciated by 33% and by 29%, respectively.

Millennials’ futures are bright

Wealthfront has always believed in millennials. For more than a decade, we’ve built products designed to help young professionals turn their savings into long-term wealth. The last five years have brought challenges—among them, a global pandemic that brought turmoil to financial markets and kicked off a period of inflation. Through it all, millennials have shown remarkable resilience and continued to thrive. They now hold more wealth than previous generations did at the same age, and are on track to be one of the wealthiest generations. 

Just as the pandemic reshaped the financial landscape, today’s macroeconomic environment presents its own challenges. By looking at the success millennials have achieved over the past few years, it’s clear that resilience and a long-term approach are key to building lasting wealth. Millennials have already proven they can navigate uncertainty, and by staying the course, we are confident they will continue to build upon that success for years to come.

We’re excited to continue serving millennials and young professionals as they build their financial futures.