• Many Gen Xers are caring for both their children and parents, and it's hurting retirement savings.
• 56% of Gen X investors were financially supporting either their parents or their kids, Nationwide found.
• The financial burden of supporting two groups has some Gen Xers doubting if they'll retire at all.

Steve Mullen, 54, is being pulled three ways.

On the one hand, he and his wife are caregivers for each of their mothers, which has required them to pitch in up to 40 hours of caregiving a week and tens of thousands of dollars over the course of decades. On the other hand, they are still supporting their college-age son, who needs help with housing and $25,000 for tuition every year. All the while, he runs his own PR business, in which making more money is a "constant" concern.

At times, he said, the burden is extraordinary.

"It's incredibly stressful," he told Business Insider, adding that money was always a back-of-mind worry, despite being relatively financially stable. "I just pray we don't go into another one of these periods where my mother's in the hospital."

His situation is becoming increasingly common among Gen Xers — a generation sandwiched between their retiring parents and still-dependent children — and, more frequently, needing to support both groups at once. It is a dilemma that has put Gen X further behind in saving for retirement compared to other groups, financial planning experts told BI.

There are signs that the dual burden of needing to support kids and parents is becoming more common. A 2020 study from the AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving found that among Gen Xers who are taking care of a parent, around 50% also have a child under the age of 18. A study conducted by Nationwide showed that 56% are financially supporting either their parents or their kids.

Gen Xers in caretaking roles are more likely to show signs of financial strain. Of those who were taking care of a child or a parent, 21% said they had taken out significant amounts of debt, and 20% said they were unable to save for retirement, per the Nationwide study.

According to a separate survey of 35- to 60-year-olds conducted by Carewell, 75% of those taking care of both a parent and a child said they struggled to save for retirement, while 63% said they lived paycheck to paycheck.

Gen Xers speaking with BI said they doubted if they would ever retire, mostly because they were set back by financial obligations related to caregiving.

40% of Gen Xers also expect to work part-time after they retire, a Prudential Financial survey found.

Julie, a woman in her fifties based in Ohio, said she had spent over $100,000 taking care of her mother over the course of 15 years. She has less than $70,000 saved for retirement, well below what's recommended by financial advisors, who say you should have around six times your annual salary saved by the time you hit 50.

"I'm exhausted financially, and, frankly, I didn't consider growing up I'd be the financial rock of my family," she said.

The sandwiched generation

By some measures, Gen Xers are even more ill-prepared for retirement than baby boomers. According to surveys conducted by Prudential Financial, the median retirement savings for 55-year-olds is just under $48,000, with 18% having saved nothing at all as of last year.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of 55-year-olds said they were afraid of outliving their savings. That's the highest level among any age group of Prudential's 2024 survey, with 59% of 65-year-olds saying they worried they would outlive their savings.

Joe Wadford, a Bank of America economist, thinks Gen Xers are uniquely burdened by taking care of their parents and children at the same time, largely because more children are living at home than in previous generations.

Around 57% of men and 55% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 lived at home with their parents in 2022, according to US Census data published this year. That compares to 52% of men and 35% of women in that age range who were living with their parents in 1960.

Satayan Mahajan, the CEO of the financial advisory firm Datalign Advisory, said that caring for parents and children simultaneously was one reason his Gen X clients commonly cited for falling behind in preparing for retirement.

Market crashes during formative times in their career, such as during the early 2000s and the Great Financial Crisis, are another reason why many have less saved up.

"This sandwiched portion of Gen Xers are really in a lot of trouble. I mean, I have to say — and I don't want to sound so negative — but I think they're in a tough spot and they have a bunch of things that hit them pretty hard," Mahajan said.

And the outlook remains uncertain for Gen X. While boomers are estimated to pass on around $80 trillion in wealth, most of that money looks primed to head to millennials, not Gen X, Mahajan said.

"They're kind of in an awkward spot," he added. "And so there's a large swath of Gen Xers who may be in a bit of a lurch."

Uncertainty is also swirling around the availability of government retirement funds. Social Security could be depleted as soon as 2033, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, when most Gen Xers are already retired or in their final decade of work.

Brandon Goldstein, a financial planner at Prudential, said many Gen Xers still have time to catch up on their retirement savings, though he believes many will have to work longer than may want to.

More older Americans are already deciding to postpone their retirement. 19% of adults 65 and over were still employed in 2023, according to a Pew Research analysis.

"For someone to be completely in a spot where they don't need to work again or they feel very comfortable, they're probably going to still have to work a little bit," Goldstein said.

• As many Americans struggle with a high cost of living, Gen X is in a particularly tight spot.
• Aged 44-59, the generation hasn't experienced millennials' wealth spike or baby boomers' pensions.
• Gen X has the highest income of all, but also the highest debt.

America's generational middle child is feeling the squeeze.

A growing subset of Gen Xers — who were born between 1965 and 1980, and are 44 to 59 years old — are struggling to pay their bills, picking up additional work, and cutting down spending on necessities, a new Philadelphia Fed survey shows.

That doesn't leave much space for discretionary spending, which could be adding to their lagging sentiment.

Meanwhile, the generations on either side are faring well. Millennials have seen a wealth boom in recent years driven by real estate and stock market returns, and baby boomers also have their pensions.

While Gen X saw their own gains from stock and real estate booms, they're also still stuck in an expensive middle-age phase, dealing with their own debts, preparing for retirement, and shouldering the burden of their children and parents.

Gen Xers have the highest income and highest debt as they navigate the 'sandwich' phase of life

Gen Xers are struggling with their personal finances across a variety of measures, a survey of around 5,000 respondents from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found.

As of October 2024, a quarter of Americans 46 to 55 were skipping some debts or monthly bills.

For some Gen Xers, that might mean skipping out on spending on some of life's more enjoyable things. Since the Philadelphia Fed's LIFE survey first began, the share of 46 to 55-year-olds cutting back on discretionary spending has grown. As of October 2024, over half of that surveyed age group said they were cutting back on discretionary spending.

"I rarely go out or buy new things or nice things. I usually shop for clothes secondhand, and the expenses that I'm really worried about — and they're just increasing — are my medical expenses," Wendy Graham, a Gen Xer in Philadelphia who works in the nonprofit sector, told BI.

Barbara Lose, a 57-year-old Gen Xer in Florida, said that she is struggling to pay rent; she lost her job over the summer.

"I just want to go through life and have a job where I can make enough money to go out to dinner and have a couple glasses of wine once a week. That's all I want out of life," Lose said. "I want to be able to pay my bills and take myself out to dinner once a week. I don't think that's asking too much, but apparently, it is these days."

Of course, cutting back on discretionary spending may not be all bad. As a Bank of America Institute research note finds, Gen X has seen its discretionary spending drop the most of all generations. The analysis attributes that, in part, to Gen Xers trying to sock away more for retirement and investing more.

Gen Xers do have the highest income of the generations, raking in a mean of $136,776 annually, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Surveys found. They also have, on average, $157,556 in total debt — the highest among the generations.

"I'm still to this day paying off student loans," Graham said.

But as Bank of America notes, Gen X is in the "sandwich" phase of life: Some are juggling supporting adult children and elderly relatives. Their sandwich stage comes as more parents are also supporting their young adult children.

"I know a lot of people that are in this situation that are my age, they're really getting squished between having to take care of their children and having to take care of their parents," Graham said. That could be putting pressure on spending on necessities. Nearly a third of Americans ages 46 to 55 were cutting back on essential spending as of October 2024, the Philadelphia Fed's survey found.

"I had to have some dental care done last year. I owe about $800 for that," Graham said. "So there just isn't enough. There's not enough extra to go around, and healthcare costs are just continuing to increase. I don't see any relief from that in the future."

All of those factors taken together might explain another Gen X phenomenon: taking on more work. While 18- to 35-year-olds were still the most likely to say that they took on an additional job as a form of financial coping, the share of 46- to 55-year-olds doing the same has increased by a little over half since January 2023.

"We're still a very adaptable generation," Lose, who's on the hunt for work, said. "I still have a lot of great ideas and energy and willingness to work in this body of mine."

It's no wonder, then, that Gen X's vibes are not so great. Elder millennials' and Gen Xers' consumer sentiment is the lowest among the different age cohorts captured by the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey.

Are you a Gen Xer struggling to make ends meet or feeling forgotten? Contact this reporter at [email protected].