Since younger millennials didn't experience the financial crisis directly, they were able to observe it — and learn what to do and what not to do, financially speaking.
According to Dorsey, they got the benefit of learning from older millennials without having to go through some of the economic pain the older cohort experienced — and from which that cohort is still recovering. This has made younger millennials more aware of the risks of a bad economy and more practical when it comes to money, from saving for emergencies to contributing to a retirement account, Dorsey said.
In 2014, the investment-banking company UBS found that millennials were the most financially conservative generation since the Great Depression. And 93% of millennials are wary of investing, Rebecca Lake of SmartAsset reported, citing a 2015 Capital One study.