Sixty-five percent of Gen Zers and 74 percent of millennials believe they are starting further behind financially than earlier generations at their age, a poll conducted for USA Today found.

Additionally, two-thirds of Americans believe younger people face hardships today that earlier generations did not, the online Harris Poll of 2,000 U.S. adults—conducted for the publication on Aug. 25-27—revealed.

The reasons for those beliefs included the high cost of starter homes, college loans and child care. Another reason is the older generations’ increased longevity and years in the workforce, which limit younger workers’ chances to advance their careers and boost their salaries.

“They're telling us they can't buy into that American dream the way that their parents and grandparents thought about i—because it's not attainable,” said Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema, who believes there’s “an entire generation that feels like they're coming of age in sort of this fractured, divisive world” where traditional systems no longer work for them.

Overall, nearly 70 percent of Americans said the economy is getting worse, an exclusive poll from the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School and USA Today, conducted on Sept. 6-11, found. Respondents described the economy with words like “chaotic,” “disastrous” and “dismal.”

Three in four younger Americans said their financial goals are different now from those of past generations, according to the Harris Poll survey. 

One of them is 26-year-old Brandon Davila of Texas. With “baby boomers, I hear how they just worked a simple job for the summer and they saved up money to go to college, to essentially get their lives started: Like get married, have kids, buy a house," he said. "Something a lot of people in my generation, myself included, find so impossible now.” 

Ashley Parker, a 23-year-old pastry cook in Raleigh, N.C. makes $16 an hour, more than the state’s $7.25 minimum wage. She’s conservative with money, but still lives with her parents in Raleigh. “I don't think it's going to get any better," she said. "It would be amazing if it did. I just think that a lot of things are going on in this country, especially the economy. It just feels in the garbage. There’s so much unknown."

Younger Americans were less likely to say financial success means owning a home (52 percent of Gen Zers agreed with this, compared with 64 percent of baby boomers), the survey found. They were also less likely to say it means having children that do better than you (38 percent of Gen Zers, versus 43 percent of millennials and 48 percent of baby boomers), the survey found.

About 62 percent of Gen Zers and millennials feel good about affording homeownership, but just 39 percent said home ownership is “even a major goal in their life,” the survey found.

Chloe Duncan, 39-year-old watercolor artist from Saint George, Utah, just purchased a house at a 6 percent mortgage rate, about double the average mortgage rate in 2021. She said the purchase was worth it for her and her boyfriend. 

Gen Z and millennial women “are less likely to feel good about their long-term finances” versus men, the survey also found. 

Megan Lee, a 28-year-old from Hawaii, feels financially secure at the moment, but still feels anxious about the future. She said she won’t feel financially successful until she can live without any support from her parents and can support them instead. 

“I don't want to face the fact that maybe I might never be able to afford my own house,” she said, pointing to the high cost of living in Honolulu.