Gen Z's Debt Is Growing Faster Than Everyone Else's

There’s a new survey from Accredited Debt Relief and Money.com out this week, and it puts a number on something you’ve probably already felt in your chest at 1 a.m. checking your balance: 45% of Gen Z say their debt grew in the past year. That’s not the highest number in the survey because Gen Z is careless. It’s the highest number because Gen Z is newest — newest to real bills, real rent, real interest rates, with the least cushion built up to absorb any of it.

Every other generation in the same survey reported a lower number. Millennials came in at 39%. Gen X at 34%. Boomers at 30%. The trend line only goes one direction, and it points straight at you.

The short version

What’s true	What it means for you
45% of Gen Z say their debt increased in the past year — more than millennials (39%), Gen X (34%), or boomers (30%) (Accredited Debt Relief/Money.com survey of 2,000 U.S. adults with debt, conducted by aytm, July 2026)	You’re not imagining it. Your generation’s debt really is growing faster than anyone else’s, and the survey says so in plain numbers.
38% of Gen Z say debt has kept them from saving for or buying a home	Almost 2 in 5 of your peers are watching the same goal slide out of reach for the same reason you might be.
The survey also found debt delaying career moves and plans to start a family for Gen Z respondents	This isn’t just about a house anymore. It’s reaching into decisions about the whole shape of your life.
MMI, a nonprofit credit counseling agency, reports a 35% year-over-year increase in Gen Z clients seeking debt help, with average unsecured debt balances up 12% since 2025 to $22,848 (CNBC Select)	You’re not the only one reaching out for help. You’re part of the fastest-growing group asking for it.

Why is Gen Z in more debt than everyone else?

Gen Z is accumulating debt faster than other generations because you’re hitting the most expensive years of adult life — first apartment, first car, first real credit line — at the exact moment rent, groceries, and interest rates are all higher than they were when your parents hit the same years. Older generations aren’t debt-free. They’re just further from the starting line, where the balance sheet takes its hardest hit.

That’s the part the survey numbers don’t spell out but the math makes obvious. A 55-year-old’s “debt growing” usually means a bigger mortgage on a house that’s also appreciating. Your debt growing usually means a credit card balance that didn’t exist a year ago, covering a gap between what you make and what everything costs now. Same word. Completely different situation.

I’ve written before about how the minimum payment on that balance is engineered against you, and this survey is what that trap looks like at scale — not one bad decision, but an entire generation quietly falling behind at the same time, for a lot of the same reasons.

The home you’re not buying isn’t a coincidence

Here’s the number that should actually stop you: 38% of Gen Z told researchers debt has kept them from saving for or buying a home. That’s not a vague feeling about the market being tough. That’s more than a third of an entire generation naming debt, specifically, as the thing standing between them and a down payment.

I’ve said before that the starter home as your parents knew it is basically gone — prices moved, inventory moved, the math moved. This survey adds a layer underneath that story. It’s not just that homes cost more. It’s that a chunk of the people who’d otherwise be saving toward one are instead sending that money to a credit card or a loan every month, which means the down payment never gets the chance to start growing in the first place.

Every dollar going to interest on a balance you didn’t plan for is a dollar that isn’t going to a down payment you did plan for. That’s the whole equation. It’s not complicated. It’s just brutal when you see it in writing.

It’s not stopping at the house

The survey didn’t stop at homeownership. It also found debt delaying career moves and plans to start a family among Gen Z respondents — and if you’ve been putting off applying for the job that pays less up front but goes somewhere, or quietly tabling the conversation about kids because the numbers don’t work yet, you already know exactly what that looks like from the inside.

I’ve written about the financial math behind Gen Z delaying kids before, and debt is the thread running under almost all of it. A career move that pays off in three years doesn’t feel safe to make when you’re still not caught up on last year. A family you want in your late twenties starts to feel like something for “later” when later is the only place the budget has any room. Debt doesn’t just cost you interest. It costs you options, at the exact age when you’re supposed to be collecting as many of them as you can.

The debt-relief industry is watching this happen in real time

You don’t have to take a survey’s word for it. Look at who’s showing up asking for help. MMI, one of the country’s larger nonprofit credit counseling agencies, reports a 35% year-over-year jump in Gen Z clients — the fastest-growing age group in their entire client base. Their average unsecured debt balance is up 12% since 2025, to $22,848.

That number is worth sitting with. $22,848 isn’t a blown weekend or one bad month. That’s years of a gap between income and cost compounding quietly, the kind of balance that doesn’t show up all at once — it shows up $40 and $60 and $120 at a time, on a card you told yourself you’d pay off next month. Enough next-months add up to a debt-counseling appointment.

None of this means you did something wrong by carrying a balance. It means the conditions you’re borrowing under — higher costs, thinner savings, less room for error — are different from the ones your parents borrowed under, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help you pay anything off faster.

What to actually do with this

You can’t negotiate with a survey. You can do something about your own number.

Write down your actual total — every card, every loan, every balance, in one place. Most people underestimate their own number by a wide margin because they’ve never added it all up at once. You can’t fix what you won’t look at directly.
Separate the debt that’s growing from the debt that’s shrinking. A car loan with a fixed payment going down every month is a different problem than a credit card balance that keeps creeping up. Treat them differently — attack the one moving against you first.
If you’re one of the 38% who named housing specifically, stop treating “save for a house” and “pay down debt” as two separate goals. Right now, for you, they’re the same goal. Every dollar off the balance is a dollar the future down payment gets to keep.
If a delayed career move or a delayed family plan is the real reason underneath the debt, say that part out loud — to yourself, to a partner, to whoever needs to hear it. The money conversation is easier to have honestly once you stop pretending it’s only about the money.
If the number feels bigger than a spreadsheet can fix, talk to an actual nonprofit credit counselor before it becomes a bigger number. That’s a real resource, not a last resort, and reaching for it earlier is a strength, not a failure — a version of not looking away from your money instead of around it.

The takeaway

A survey can only tell you what’s true for the group. It can’t tell you what’s true for your card, your loan, your one number sitting in an app you’d rather not open tonight. But here’s what I want you to actually carry out of this: the fact that your debt is growing isn’t proof you’re behind where you should be. It’s proof you’re standing where the whole economy currently makes it hardest to stand. Go open the app anyway. The number doesn’t get smaller because you didn’t look.