Donald Trump has heralded his record on the economy while he was president on countless occasions, although critics have suggested his term wasn't as successful as he's made out.
While on stage earlier this week at the conservative Turning Point Action Conference, the former president went straight on the attack over President Joe Biden's economic credentials, citing inflation, mortgage costs, and wages among other arguments.
At one point, Trump turned his attention to the experience of younger Americans, saying that under Biden, a third of millennials and Gen Z Americans have no savings.
The Claim
Footage on video hosting site Rumble, posted on July 15, 2023, viewed 617,000 times, showed Donald Trump claiming that under Joe Biden's presidency, a third of younger Americans did not have a financial safety net or money for their future.
Trump said: "And we have a man who's grossly incompetent, who doesn't even know where he is who can't put two sentences together.
"And this is the man that's telling us what we're going to be doing. Under Biden, hope and opportunity for young people, so many young people here are being utterly extinguished. In the Biden economy, one third of Gen Z and millennials have no savings accounts and no savings whatsoever.
"They have nothing, they have nothing."
The Facts
Trump made a number of outspoken claims during his Turning Point speech, such as calling his federal indictments "a badge of honor", boasting that he could end the war in Ukraine, and attacking his main Republican rival, Ron DeSantis.
Biden, of course, did not avoid Trump's ire and the U.S. economy gave the former president plenty of material to attack with.
However, while the central claim he made about young Americans' savings is based on some survey data, other data suggests Trump fared no better on this measure of the economy while he was president either, which calls into question his implication that Biden bears responsibility.
Earlier this year, personal finance company Bankrate found that 31 percent of American Gen Z workers had nothing saved for retirement, as well as 23 percent of millennials.
In 2022, financial services company Fidelity also found that 55 percent of 18 to 35-year-olds had halted retirement planning since the pandemic, with 45 percent saying they didn't "see a point in saving until things return to normal."
Personal finance site GOBanking Rates also found in 2023 that six in 10 of 18 to 24-year-olds had $1,000 or less in savings, with 31 percent having less than $100.
This kind of survey data does not give a hopeful view of the financial future of America's youngest (or younger) adults and supports Trump's claim.
However, while he was president, there were countless headlines and surveys showing that millennials and younger Americans had little to nothing in the way of spare cash either.
A 2018 report by the National Institute on Retirement Security, based in Washington, D.C., found 66 percent of working millennials had nothing saved for retirement, with only 5 percent "saving adequately".
In 2017, a GOBanking Rates survey also found that 46 percent of young millennials (defined at the time as those between 18 and 24 years old) had nothing in their savings account, while 21 percent said it was less than $1,000, reported CNBC.
In 2019, Insider and Morning Consult also found that 55 percent of millennials didn't have a retirement savings account.
Of course, similar gloomy headlines predate Trump's presidency as well. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that adults under 35 had a savings rate of negative 2 percent, meaning they were "burning through their assets or going into debt."
The causes for this may be manifold: the stagnancy of the global economy from the 2010s to the present, inflation and cost-of-living concerns, and wage disparity are just some of the reasons why savings or the ability to save have reportedly been limited among many younger American generations over the past decade or so.
However, while Biden may also need to deal with the economic circumstances that may be discouraging younger generations from saving, the issue has been around for longer, it seems, than Trump suggests.
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for Donald Trump and the White House for comment.
The Ruling
Needs Context.
Trump is right in that there is survey data that suggests as many as a third of Gen-Z Americans have no savings, with millennials experiencing similar issues.
However, the problem is not confined to "the Biden economy." It has been reported on for almost a decade now, including throughout Trump's presidency, a fact that the former president did not mention during his Turning Point Action Conference speech.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
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