Millennials inching closer to middle age are in the worst financial shape of any other previous living generation in America, a new study has discovered. And they may never bounce back.

The fact is that the millennial generation was hobbled by the economic crisis and recession that hit just as they began their working lives, The Wall Street Journal reported. These young adults, born between 1981 and 1996 have since failed to find the financial stability every other generation has experienced by the same age — despite record education levels — according to new data on the issue.

The economic disparity millennials are facing has led to a a delay in some “typical” adult milestones, “in ways expected to alter the nation’s demographic and economic contours through the end of the century,” according to the Journal. They’re not buying homes or having children like their parents and grandparents did before them, an effect that will lead to fewer people in the workforce to support a growing population of near-retirees.

“We’ll have to rethink a lot of things about taxation and how social programs are funded if fertility is really on a more permanent decline,” Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, told the Journal.

Factors that are contributing to this millennial mindset — like student loans — weren’t nearly as huge a factor for previous generations, either.

“If I can’t afford a home, I definitely can’t afford kids,” said Joy Brown, 32, a single renter who earns $75,000 a year with $102,000 in student loan debt and another $10,000 in credit-card debt. “Myself and a lot of my peers still feel like we’re playing catch-up in the game of life.”

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