These Are The 10 Worst States For Millennials

Even the most curmudgeonly boomer would probably agree that the millennial generation is struggling. Though they have no great wars to fight (in the West, wars are now fought by volunteers), millennials are facing enormous loads of student debt, stagnant wages, and an entrenched sense that the future looks bleak. Whatever skills they have learned will likely be rendered unmarketable thanks to AI, and anybody who isn’t programming the machines and computers who will run our future society should fear them.

As a group, those aged 23 to 38 earn less and have fewer assets than their parents. But across the US, there’s a pretty wide variance in living conditions, and for millennials who need to watch every penny, certain states make more hospitable homes than others.

In a recent research project, Zippia.com determined the 10 worst states/territories for millennials. They are:

• District of Columbia
• Georgia
• New York
• Florida
• North Carolina
• California
• South Carolina
• Alabama
• Louisiana
• Mississippi

As a region, the south is the most heavily represented on this list, accompanied by states with expensive urban enclaves where young people flock seemingly to live in penury while they follow their dreams chasing those entertainment and media jobs that will seemingly never provide a realistic paycheck (the share of millennials in their 20s and even into their 30s who depend on financial support from parents has never been higher).

To arrive at its rankings, the researchers assigned number values for each of four categories: millennial unemployment rate, average student loan debt load, millennial home ownership and the percentage of millennials living in poverty.

Which brings us to No. 1…

Washington DC:

Unemployment: 6%

Home Ownership: 18.38%

Poverty Rate: 25%

Student Loan Debt: $60,039

A city known for its ridiculous housing prices, one in four millennials in our nation’s capital live in poverty. They also have the highest average student loan debt in the nation.

Georgia:

Unemployment: 8%

Home Ownership: 31.61%

Poverty Rate: 20%

Student Loan Debt: $37,284

Though housing is relatively affordable in Georgia, and the student-debt burden is much lower than Washington DC, roughly one in five millennial Georgians live in poverty, which is enough to secure the No. 2 spot on this list.

New York

Unemployment: 7%

Home Ownership: 24%

Poverty Rate: 19%

Student Loan Debt: $38,734

Low home ownership rates coupled with brutally high rents make New York a no-brainer for the No. 3 spot. Millennials also face high poverty rates and burdensome student debt loads.

Florida

Unemployment: 7%

Home Ownership: 29%

Poverty Rate: 19%

Student Loan Debt: $35,709

The state best known as a sunny place for shady people, one in five of the state’s millennials live in poverty. Setting the numbers aside, the proximity to Florida Man can’t be easily quantified, but it definitely sucks.

North Carolina

Unemployment: 7%

Home Ownership: 32%

Poverty Rate: 20%

Student Loan Debt: $36,246

The issues with North Carolina is low home ownership and high unemployment, coupled with a high student debt burden.

California

Unemployment: 7%

Home Ownership: 23%

Poverty Rate: 17%

Student Loan Debt $34,449

Piss-poor policymaking in Sacramento has saddled Californians with expensive housing prices (because endless environmental regs make building so expensive), while nature is punishing the state with wildfires and a brutal drought that finally ended this year. Homeownership is simply out of reach for all but the wealthiest tech industry drones.

South Carolina

Unemployment: 7%

Home Ownership: 36%

Poverty Rate: 22%

Student Loan Debt: $37,249

Alabama

Unemployment: 8%

Home Ownership: 37%

Poverty Rate: 23%

Student Loan Debt: $34,861

Alabama is very similar to the other southern states on this list: High unemployment and poverty.

Louisiana

Unemployment: 8%

Home Ownership: 37%

Poverty Rate: 26%

Student Loan Debt: $33,860

Things aren’t easy for millennials down by the bayou. Like Alabama before it, young people face high rates of poverty and unemployment. But at least they can drink their troubles away in the Big Easy.

Mississippi

Hardly a surprise. One of the only Southern states that’s entirely devoid of a large urban commercial center (the largest city is the capital, Jackson, and it’s the only municipality in the state with a population of over 100,000 people), Mississippi is known for grinding rural poverty in communities where jobs, solid housing and even basic services like supermarkets can be hard to come by.

If your state isn’t listed above, you can see where it fell on the list here.