A new report shows that members of Gen Z — individuals born between 1997 and 2012 — define “financial success” as earning nearly $600,000 per year. That’s nearly twice as much as the salaries other generations consider financially successful, and far more than the amount of money most Americans make in a year.

It’s a phenomenon that may in part be explained by the unique circumstances in which Gen Z Americans were raised — with social media and endless digital comparisons to more glamorous lives those apps enable. It’s also a generation that’s come of age amid historic financial and health care crises, climate change and political instability.

The survey, conducted by Empower, a finance and insurance company, found that members of Gen Z define financial success as earning an annual salary of $587,797 and possessing $9.47 million in assets. That salary is nearly nine times as much as the average full-time worker’s annual earnings — currently around $60,580, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the $9.47 million in savings is leagues above what the average American has across their savings, checking and investment accounts — $62,410, according to the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances.

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“What I wonder about is, what do they even mean by financially successful?” said Eric Arzubi, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center. “I gotta believe, if they're looking at almost $600,000 a year, they're not looking at just being able to pay the bills.”

Gen Z is the first generation to experience a childhood and adolescence fully........

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