For years, financial advice for young Americans has sounded like a broken record: save diligently, invest in stocks and bonds, and eventually, you’ll reap the rewards of slow, steady growth. But as Gen Z comes of age in 2026, it’s clear that these old formulas are losing their grip. Instead, a new economic mindset—dubbed "disillusionomics"—is taking hold, reflecting a generation’s skepticism toward conventional wisdom and a willingness to gamble on riskier, unconventional paths to wealth.
Gen Z, those born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, are now entering adulthood with a unique set of challenges and attitudes. According to Fortune, as of early 2026, Gen Zers carry an average personal debt of $94,101—the highest of any generation, far outpacing millennials ($59,181) and Gen X ($53,255). This staggering figure isn’t just a symptom of youthful financial mismanagement, experts say, but a sign of deeper disillusionment with the economic system itself.
Economist and author Alice Lassman, herself a member of Gen Z, coined the term "disillusionomics" to describe her generation’s coping mechanism for an uncertain financial future. "I actually was sitting for a while with trying to understand this broad trend, or this broad glue that was connecting together a lot of the disparate Gen Z trends that we were seeing," Lassman told Fortune. She believes Gen Z’s rejection of traditional financial prudence goes beyond the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis—a crisis that, for many, was their first exposure to economics, even as children.
"The economic system their parents are talking to them about isn’t really going to work out for them in the same way," Lassman explained. She argues that Gen Z has internalized a profound mismatch between what they were told about how the economy works and what they’ve actually experienced. This gap has bred a deep-seated skepticism, or even outright distrust, of institutions like government, media, and business.
It’s not hard to see why. The unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds reached 10.8% last year, compared to 4.3% overall, according to Fortune. One-third of Gen Z believes they’ll never own a home, and many are planning to forgo having children. Familiar markers of stability—homeownership, family, retirement—feel increasingly out of reach.
Against this backdrop, Gen Z’s financial habits look radically different. They’re known as "doom spenders," willing to shell out for memorable experiences like concerts or travel, even as they cut back on other spending. The so-called "YOLO economy"—you only live once—took root during the meme-stock craze of 2021 and shows no signs of fading. Yet, paradoxically, Gen Z’s overall spending is actually decreasing. PwC’s global retail leader Kelly Pedersen told Fortune, "For their spend to decrease as much as they say it was going to decrease is pretty significant… that generation should be increasing spending more than anybody, because they have the highest income growth out of any generation, but it’s just not happening."
Pedersen attributes this to Gen Z’s intense value-consciousness. "We find that if that generation doesn’t see the value there very quickly, they will very quickly trade down into a dupe, right, or into something that is like what they want, but maybe isn’t as expensive. So it’s all about value, value, value to that generation." This "dupe culture"—a love for cheaper alternatives to luxury goods—reflects a practical, even cynical, approach to consumption. Sustainability and longevity also factor into their decisions, Pedersen noted.
But perhaps the most striking shift is Gen Z’s embrace of high-risk, "alternative" investments. According to USA TODAY, a January 2026 survey of 4,375 Americans found that 80% of Gen Zers and 75% of millennials who choose risky investments feel financially behind. Many believe speculative assets like crypto, meme stocks, and prediction markets offer better odds of meeting their financial goals than traditional stocks and bonds.
The numbers are telling: 32% of Gen Z and 24% of millennials are invested in or considering sports betting or prediction markets; 18% of millennials and 17% of Gen Z are involved in options trading; and 14% of Gen Z and 13% of millennials are dabbling in meme stocks. Crypto remains the most popular, with 32% of Gen Z and 35% of millennials invested or considering investment, compared to 24% of all U.S. adults. These high-risk moves are largely shunned by older generations—fewer than 10% of baby boomers participate in any of these four categories.
What’s driving this appetite for risk? According to Northwestern Mutual’s Planning & Progress Study 2026, many young investors see these alternatives as a "cheat code"—a way to leapfrog the slow grind of traditional wealth-building. "There’s a lot of presence on social media of people showing a successful lifestyle, and that gives a fear of missing out," said Tim Procita, a wealth management adviser at Northwestern Mutual. He hears young people refer to these assets as a "cheat code," reflecting the belief that the old rules no longer apply.
Yet experts warn that some of these so-called investments are closer to gambling than true investing. "The expected return for any sports bettor is negative. And there’s no way around that," said David Gardner, cofounder of The Motley Fool, to USA TODAY. Similarly, meme stocks—like the GameStop frenzy of 2021—can soar and crash on hype alone, untethered from financial fundamentals. "All of them have come crashing to earth," noted Caleb Silver, editor in chief of Investopedia.
The blurring of lines between investing and gambling is especially apparent in the rise of prediction markets and sports betting. Americans have wagered nearly $450 billion on sports since a 2018 Supreme Court decision legalized sports betting, according to Investopedia. Platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi let users bet on everything from Federal Reserve decisions to reality TV outcomes. In one high-profile case, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who participated in a raid to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro faces charges for betting on the operation’s outcome on Polymarket.
Regulatory shifts have only fueled the trend. In 2024, federal regulators cleared the way for ordinary investors to buy and sell bitcoin ETFs, opening the crypto market to a broader public. Despite bitcoin’s value plunging in late 2025 and early 2026, Silver told USA TODAY, "Even with crypto prices basically cut in half from their highs, it is still a meaningful asset that will be a part of our financial infrastructure for the foreseeable future."
Gen Z’s approach is also colored by a sense of economic nihilism—a belief that long-term planning is futile in a system that seems rigged against them. Lassman described how some Gen Zers justify shoplifting from corporations, seeing it as a victimless crime against entities that can absorb the loss. Others channel their anxiety into "house hacking"—renting out extra rooms or leveraging content creation for passive income. "When every conventional path narrows, people start to look for alternatives. And in practice, that has meant turning toward the few places where a real upside still appears possible, even if the risks are high," wrote Kyla Scanlon in The Wall Street Journal.
For Gen Z, economic life is less about following a prescribed path and more about improvising in a volatile, unpredictable world. As Lassman put it to Fortune, "A lot of it is just kind of reactive. And so they’re kind of defining their own income streams." Whether this new era of "disillusionomics" will pay off—or merely deepen generational divides—remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: Gen Z isn’t waiting around for the promises of the past to come true. They’re forging their own, riskier road, for better or worse.