Are your pay hikes funding wealth or lifestyle?

Summary: Gen Z earns earlier and borrows instantly. The result is young professionals with respectable pay and surprisingly thin balance sheets. Two ratios reveal exactly which direction you're heading. They earn earlier. They upgrade faster. They borrow instantly. Gen Z entered the workforce in a period of rising salaries and seamless credit. Credit cards are approved in minutes. Buy-now-pay-later sits one click away. Travel, gadgets and lifestyle upgrades can be converted into EMIs almost instantly. While income has arrived early, so has leverage. The result is young professionals with respectable pay but surprisingly thin balance sheets. The real question is not whether Gen Z earns well. Many do. The question is whether those earnings are turning into assets or just being absorbed by increasing consumption. The behavioural shift Credit bureau data support what we increasingly observe on the ground. CRIF High Mark’s 2025 data shows borrowers under 30 are among the fastest-growing segments in unsecured retail credit, with higher early-stage delinquency rates than older cohorts. Access is instant. Consequences are slower. Older generations often followed a simple formula: Expenses = Income – Savings. Savings came first. Spending adjusted. Today, the formula often reverses: Savings = Income &ndas

This article was originally published on March 20, 2026.