The traditional paths to building wealth are -2-

Members of Gen Z said that on average it takes an annual income of $500,000 to be successful, more than twice the average amount cited by all respondents. Many want to retire earlier than previous generations did.

Faced with economic uncertainty, about 43% of Gen Z-ers now have a side hustle, according to a 2026 LendingTree survey. More than half of them see these gigs as supporting their long-term financial security, and 35% plan to continue with them until their main job provides more income.

In response to high costs, more working young adults are living with their parents.

A growing number are also focusing on how they can thrive when companies reward owners and shareholders more than workers. Labor compensation as a share of non-farm GDP fell to 52.9% in the second quarter this year, "the lowest level in the series which begins in the first quarter of 1947," according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One result of this shift in awareness has been a sixfold increase in investing by younger people since 2015, catalyzed by technology that has made the stock market more accessible. In 2024, 37% of 25-year-olds had moved money into investment accounts since age 22, up from 6% in 2015, according to the JPMorganChase Institute.

Even so, many young workers are not yet participating in the stock market. Some don't know how to, and others cannot afford to.

Still, "it's never been more obvious that wealth begets wealth," economic commentator Kyla Scanlon, who is herself a member of Gen Z, recently wrote, noting that since 1990, median pay has increased by 18%, home prices by 66%, and S&P 500 SPX returns by 1,500%. "Wealth - ownership - feels like it matters more than any sort of labor income, because wealth builds more wealth."

Nicole Ingham, at 33 a young millennial or "zillennial," said her parents always taught her to save money, but never taught her about investing.

Her parents, who were in the military, "were able to get to financial prosperity through hard work and grit and determination," she said. "I want ease, and I want space, and I want time. And those are things my parents never had." Because she didn't have the job security or pension that comes with a military career, she worried that simply working and saving would tether her to "the middle-class trap: working until 65 and still not able to retire," she said.

After being exposed to investing through a job at a financial-technology company, Ingham said she "became pretty obsessed with the idea of buying my life back." She started investing most of her salary while she and her husband lived off his $65,000 income, the larger of the two.

Their investable net worth now is just over $1 million, which is in sector-based and total-market index funds as well as individual stocks. This has allowed Ingham to step away from her corporate job and start her own business as a financial coach in Jacksonville, Fla. She plans to hire their two children to do work for her company to jump-start their ability to build wealth, with the aim of setting them up to be multimillionaires by the time they retire.

"As soon as you figure it out, it's like the secret is out, and you're like, 'Oh, there's another way,'" Ingham said.

Kaylee Archibald, age 31, said she has been able to invest about 25% to 30% of her gross income by advocating for higher pay at her job and doing odd jobs such as reselling clothing and pet sitting. "I was lucky enough to have a couple of really great co-workers that pushed me to ask for more [pay]" at work, she told MarketWatch. She mostly invests in index funds such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO, Invesco QQQ Trust QQQ and Vanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market ETF VTI.

"I'm hoping if I stay on track that I'll be work-optional in 10 years," Archibald said. Her father thinks that is "unfathomable," but she believes that by "being intentional now, and investing and saving aggressively, it will change my life."

Outcomes like these, however, are rare. The problem, even for motivated investors, is that for the many people who cannot afford to save aggressively, "steadily investing money into a diversified basket of stocks is a wonderful way to save for your retirement, but it is not a guarantee for getting ahead," said Moore.

Others are exploring entrepreneurship. More than half of Gen Z-ers said they have seriously considered starting a business in the last 12 months, nearly twice the rate of all respondents in a recent poll.

While nearly half of small businesses fail within five years, Kyla Scanlon noted that ownership also affords greater opportunity.

For Will Freeman, age 29, getting ahead meant starting his own consulting firm while working full time. He left his job in 2024, sold his company in 2025 and now works part time as a chief information officer in Tampa.

"I make three times as much as I did at my corporate job and work half the amount of time," he told MarketWatch. While many of his friends went back to school for their MBAs with the goal of working at big consulting firms, he said, "I was already progressing in my career enough, and I didn't have that barrier to getting promoted or creating opportunities for myself."

Many Gen Z-ers say they expect their financial situation to improve over the next year, and about 42% expect to do better than their parents, according to an Urban Institute survey.

Yet many no longer see the old playbook as enough to get ahead. As the paths to prosperity change, Nicole Ingham, the zillennial financial coach, said, "all Americans should have the right to be educated on how to benefit from the growth of the U.S. economy."

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-Venessa Wong

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09-11-26 1301ET