The kids are not alright – financially speaking.

This is according to a whole range of recently published studies and research.

The latest Household Debt and Credit release from the New York Federal Reserve reports that Americans’ personal debt has nearly doubled from its levels 20 years ago.  

The same report also shows repayment delinquencies are now back to pre-pandemic levels particularly for student loan debt (the repayment pause ended in September 2023 and missed payments that weren’t reported during this period started appearing on credit scores in 2025).  

While this troubling data is unfortunately true among all generations, given the younger cohorts’ lower income levels and share of wealth, Millennials and Gen Z may feel the financial pain more sharply and may start pulling back their consumer spending at higher rates.  

A recent Black Box Intelligence study suggests that younger people are already pulling back their restaurant spending. 

Generational Challenges 

According to the Federal Reserve, Millennials hold under 10% of the Nation’s wealth despite being 22% of the population. And in a recent Harvard survey, 42% of Americans under 30 (the majority of Gen Z) say they’re “barely getting by.” 

There are many factors as to why younger generations are carrying this financial burden, including – but not limited to – significant student loan debt, entering the workforce during difficult economic periods (the Great Recession for millennials and the pandemic for Gen Z) and wages not keeping pace with the rising cost of living.   

Additionally, younger people have less “good debt”-like mortgages. Millennials own homes at a lower rate than previous generations at a similar age. And given the rising cost of housing and high mortgage rates, Gen Z is expected to own at an even even lower rate.  

Young Generations Pulling Back Their Restaurant Spending?

But how – if at all – is this affecting the restaurant industry? 

Despite these hardships, younger people tend to allocate a larger share of their spending to food away from home. 

While older generations lecture that this type of spending is a source of the younger generations financial struggles (see the famous Avocado Toast Debate). Younger generations however, retort that this is merely a consequence of their economic realities, valuing simpler pleasures in place of the less attainable traditional ones like homeownership.  

Black Box Intelligence opts not to get involved in this inter-generational bickering. But it can instead offer some evidence pointing to younger people pulling back on their restaurant spending. When we combine our restaurant performance dataset and demographic information from the United States Census, we can examine restaurant performance in younger zip codes. 

By grouping zip codes where the estimated median age is under 32.7 (the youngest 10% of zip codes) we start to see patterns over the past two years.

Difference in Traffic Growth By Age: Last 18 Months