Raphael Stevens

FA Playbook

Adult members of Gen Z are feeling disillusioned about their economic prospects.
Nearly half say planning for the future feels “pointless,” according to a Credit Karma poll.
Many feel frustrated by a tough job market and worried about debt, experts said.
There are some simple steps Gen Z members can take to set themselves up for financial success.

Xavier Lorenzo | Moment | Getty Images

Gen Z seems to have a case of economic malaise.
Nearly half (49%) of its adult members — the oldest of whom are in their late 20s — say planning for the future feels “pointless,” according to a recent Credit Karma poll.

A freewheeling attitude toward summer spending has taken root among young adults who feel financial “despair” and “hopelessness,” said Courtney Alev, a consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma.
They think, “What’s the point when it comes to saving for the future?” Alev said.
That “YOLO mindset” among Generation Z — the cohort born from roughly 1997 through 2012 — can be dangerous: If unchecked, it might lead young adults to rack up high-interest debt they can’t easily repay, perhaps leading to delayed milestones like moving out of their parents’ home or saving for retirement, Alev said.
But your late teens and early 20s is arguably the best time for young people to develop healthy financial habits: Starting to invest now, even a little bit, will yield ample benefits via decades of compound interest, experts said.
“There are a lot of financial implications in the long term if these young people aren’t planning for their financial future and [are] spending willy-nilly however they want,” Alev said.

Why Gen Z feels disillusioned

That said, that many feel disillusioned is understandable in the current environment, experts said.
The labor market has been tough lately for new entrants and those looking to switch jobs, experts said.
The U.S. unemployment rate is relatively low, at 4.2%. However, it’s much higher for Americans 22 to 27 years old: 5.8% for recent college grads and 6.9% for those without a bachelor’s degree, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data as of March 2025.

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Young adults are also saddled with debt concerns, experts said.
“They feel they don’t have any money and many of them are in debt,” said Winnie Sun, co-founder and managing director of Sun Group Wealth Partners, based in Irvine, California. “And they’re wondering if the degree they have (or are working toward) will be of value if A.I. takes all their jobs anyway. So is it just pointless?”
About 50% of bachelor’s degree recipients in the 2022-23 class graduated with student debt, with an average debt of $29,300, according to College Board.
The federal government restarted collections on student debt in default in May, after a five-year pause.
The Biden administration’s efforts to forgive large swaths of student debt, including plans to help reduce monthly payments for struggling borrowers, were largely stymied in court.
“Some hoped some or more of it would be forgiven, and that didn’t turn out to be the case,” said Sun, a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
Meanwhile, in a 2024 report, the New York Fed found credit card delinquency rates were rising faster for Gen Z than for other generations. About 15% had maxed out their cards, more than other cohorts, it said.

It’s also “never been easier to buy things,” with the rise of buy now, pay later lending, for example, Alev said.
BNPL has pushed the majority of Gen Z users — 77% — to say the service has encouraged them to spend more than they can afford, according to the Credit Karma survey. The firm polled 1,015 adults ages 18 and older, 182 of whom are from Gen Z.
These financial challenges compound an environment of general political and financial uncertainty, amid on-again-off-again tariff policy and its potential impact on inflation and the U.S. economy, for example, experts said.
“You start stacking all these things on top of each other and it can create a lack of optimism for young people looking to get started in their financial lives,” Alev said.

How to manage that financial malaise

Patricio Nahuelhual | Moment | Getty Images

Young adults should try to rewire their financial mindset, experts said.
“Most importantly, you don’t want to bet against yourself,” Sun said.
“See it as an opportunity,” she added. “If you’re young and your expenses are low, this is the time to invest as much as you can right now.”
Time is working in their favor, due to the ability to compound investment growth over multiple decades, Alev said.
While investing might “feel impossible,” every little bit helps, even if it’s just investing $10 a month right now into a tax-advantaged retirement account like a Roth IRA or 401(k).
The latter is among the easiest ways to start, due to automatic payroll deduction and the possibility of earning a “match” from your employer, which is “probably the closest thing to free money any of us will get in our lifetime,” Alev said.

“This is actually the most exciting time to invest, because you’re young,” Sun said.
Instituting mindful spending habits, such as putting a waiting period of at least 24 hours in place before buying a non-essential item, can help prevent unnecessary spending, she added.
Sun advocates for paying down high-interest debt before focusing on investing, so interest payments don’t quickly spiral out of control. Or, as an alternative, they can try to fund a 401(k) to get their full company match while also working to pay off high-interest debt, she said.
“Instead of getting into the ‘woe is me’ mode, change that into taking action,” Sun said. “Make a plan, take baby steps and get excited about opportunities to invest.” More

The Swiss government proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital.
The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.
The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.

A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.
The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and potentially carry out fewer share buybacks.

“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.
The measures therefore amount to an additional $26 billion in core capital but a requirement of just $18 billion in new capital. This is $2 billion lower than the $20 billion estimated by JP Morgan earlier this week.
UBS shares jumped 6% following the announcement and ended Friday’s trading session 3.8% higher.
The Swiss bank will become more stable and attractive in areas such as asset management, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said during a press briefing on Friday. “I don’t believe that the competitiveness will be impaired, but it is true that growth abroad will become more expensive,” she said in comments reported by Reuters.
UBS said while it supports “in principle” most of the regulatory proposals announced on Friday, it strongly disagrees with the “extreme” increase in capital requirements. Based on the bank’s first-quarter results, its CET1 capital ratio target of between 12.5% and 13% — along with previously communicated capital — the firm said it would be required to hold around $42 billion in additional CET1 capital in total.

The bank maintained its target of achieving an underlying return on CET1 capital of around 15% and also reaffirmed its capital return intentions for the year.
“UBS will actively engage in the consultation process with all relevant stakeholders and contribute to evaluating alternatives and effective solutions that lead to regulatory change proposals with a reasonable cost/benefit outcome. UBS will also evaluate appropriate measures, if and where possible, to address the negative effects that extreme regulations would have on its shareholders,” the bank said.

Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, noted that the news was “as bad as it will get for UBS.”
The banking giant “can now lobby for some concessions and take some actions themselves to mitigate impact, for instance upstream some excess capital from its subsidiaries,” Scholtz said. He added that while negotiations will start immediately, there will be a long-phase out for UBS to deploy the measures, with the earliest that it will apply in full being 2034.
JPMorgan analysts led by Kian Abouhossein also stressed that a long lead time of six to eight years for UBS to fulfil the deduction of investments in its foreign units is a “positive” outcome for the bank. With finalization expected around 2027, JPMorgan expects full implementation by 2033 at the earliest.
UBS is expected to generate around $12 billion [per annum] in profits with a dividend of about $3 billion, which means the bank can “fulfill its ‘capital gap’ by 2033+ and still continue with buybacks,” the analysts said.
The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.
“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.

‘Too big to fail’

UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.
The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.
Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.
At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.
Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.
“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement. 
“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”
The prospect of stringent Swiss capital rules and UBS’ extensive U.S. presence through its core global wealth management division comes as White House trade tariffs already weigh on the bank’s fortunes. In a dramatic twist, the bank lost its crown as continental Europe’s most valuable lender by market capitalization to Spanish giant Santander in mid-April.
– CNBC’s Ganesh Rao contributed to this report. More

Federal funding cuts in the House of Representatives’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act may prompt millions of Americans to lose insurance under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.
With the Senate now poised to consider the legislation, here’s who experts say could be most vulnerable to getting dropped from health care coverage.

Fatcamera | E+ | Getty Images

The House tax and spending bill would push millions of Americans off health insurance rolls, as Republicans cut programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to fund priorities from President Donald Trump, including almost $4 trillion of tax cuts. 
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan legislative scorekeeper, projects about 11 million people would lose health coverage due to provisions in the House bill, if enacted in its current form. It estimates another 4 million or so would lose insurance due to expiring Obamacare subsidies, which the bill doesn’t extend.

The ranks of the uninsured would swell as a result of policies that would add barriers to access, raise insurance costs and deny benefits outright for some people like certain legal immigrants.  
The legislation, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” may change as Senate Republicans now consider it. Health care cuts have proven to be a thorny issue. A handful of GOP senators — enough to torpedo the bill — don’t appear to back cuts to Medicaid, for example.
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The bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over a decade, CBO estimates. That’s after cutting more than $900 billion from health care programs during that time, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
The cuts are a sharp shift following incremental increases in the availability of health insurance and coverage over the past 50 years, including through Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, according to Alice Burns, associate director with KFF’s program on Medicaid and the uninsured.

“This would be the biggest retraction in health insurance that we’ve ever experienced,” Burns said. “That’s makes it really difficult to know how people, providers, states, would react.”
Here are the major ways the bill would increase the number of uninsured.

No population ‘safe’ from proposed Medicaid cuts

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., pictured at a press conference after the House narrowly passed a bill forwarding President Donald Trump’s agenda on May 22 in Washington, DC.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Federal funding cuts to Medicaid will have broad implications, experts say.
“No population, frankly, is safe from a bill that cuts more than $800 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, because states will have to adjust,” said Allison Orris, senior fellow and director of Medicaid policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The provision in the House proposal that would lead most people to lose Medicaid and therefore become uninsured would be new work requirements that would apply to states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, according to Orris.
The work requirements would affect eligibility for individuals ages 19 to 64 who do not have a qualifying exemption. Affected individuals would need to demonstrate they worked or participated in qualifying activities for at least 80 hours per month.
States would also need to verify that applicants meet requirements for one or more consecutive months prior to coverage, while also conducting redeterminations at least twice per year to ensure individuals who are already covered still comply with the requirements.

In a Sunday interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said “4.8 million people will not lose their Medicaid coverage unless they choose to do so,” while arguing the work requirements are not too “cumbersome.”
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the work requirements would prompt 5.2 million adults to lose federal Medicaid coverage. While some of those may obtain coverage elsewhere, CBO estimates the change would increase the number of people without insurance by 4.8 million.
Those estimates may be understated because they do not include everyone who qualifies but fails to properly report their work hours or submit the appropriate paperwork if they qualify for an exemption, said KFF’s Burns.
Overall, 10.3 million would lose Medicaid, which would lead to 7.8 million people losing health insurance, Burns said.

Proposal creates state Medicaid funding challenges

Protect Our Care supporters display “Hands Off Medicaid” message in front of the White House ahead of President Trump’s address to Congress on March 4 in Washington, D.C. 
Paul Morigi | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

While states have used health care provider taxes to generate funding for Medicaid, the House proposal would put a stop to using those levies in the future, Orris noted.
Consequently, with less revenue and federal support, states will face the tough choice of having to cut coverage or cut other parts of their state budget in order to maintain their Medicaid program, Orris said.
For example, home and community-based services could face cuts to preserve funding for mandatory benefits like inpatient and outpatient hospital care, she said.
The House proposal would also delay until 2035 two Biden-era eligibility rules that were intended to make Medicaid enrollment and renewal easier for people, especially older adults and individuals with disabilities, Burns said.
States would also have their federal matching rate for Medicaid expenditures reduced if they offer coverage to undocumented immigrants, she said.

Affordable Care Act cuts ‘wonky’ but ‘consequential’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks about the health care impacts of the Republican budget and policy bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” during a June 4 news conference in Washington, D.C.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

More than 24 million people have health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.  
They’re a “critical” source of coverage for people who don’t have access to health insurance at their jobs, including for the self-employed, low-paid workers and older individuals who don’t yet qualify for Medicare, according to researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank.
The House legislation would “dramatically” reduce ACA enrollment — and, therefore, the number of people with insurance — due to the combined effect of several changes rather than one big proposal, wrote Drew Altman, president and chief executive of KFF, a nonpartisan health policy group.
“Many of the changes are technical and wonky, even if they are consequential,” Altman wrote.

Expiring ACA subsidies add to coverage costs

ACA enrollment is at an all-time high. Enrollment has more than doubled since 2020, which experts largely attribute to enhanced insurance subsidies offered by Democrats in the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and then extended through 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Those subsidies, called “premium tax credits,” effectively reduce consumers’ monthly premiums. (The credits can be claimed at tax time, or households can opt to get them upfront via lower premiums.)
Congress also expanded the eligibility pool for subsidies to more middle-income households, and reduced the maximum annual contribution households make toward premium payments, experts said. 

The enhanced subsidies lowered households’ premiums by $705 (or 44%) in 2024 — to $888 a year from $1,593, according to KFF.
The House Republican legislation doesn’t extend the enhanced subsidies, meaning they’d expire after this year.
About 4.2 million people will be uninsured in 2034 if the expanded premium tax credit expires, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“They might just decide not to get [coverage] because they simply can’t afford to insure themselves,” said John Graves, a professor of health policy and medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. 
Coverage will become more expensive for others who remain in a marketplace plan: The typical family of four with income of $65,000 will pay $2,400 more per year without the enhanced premium tax credit, CBPP estimates.

Adding red tape to eligibility, enrollment

More than 3 million people are expected to lose Affordable Care Act coverage as a result of other provisions in the House legislation, CBO projects.
Other “big” changes include broad adjustments to eligibility, said Kent Smetters, professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. 
For example, the bill shortens the annual open enrollment period by about a month, to Dec. 15, instead of Jan. 15 in most states. 
It ends automatic re-enrollment into health insurance — used by more than half of people who renewed coverage in 2025 — by requiring all enrollees to take action to continue their coverage each year, CBPP said.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) (C) speak alongside Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) (L) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) (R) outside the White House on June 4, 2025. The Senators met with President Donald Trump to discuss Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful Bill” and the issues some members within the Republican Senate have with the legislation and its cost.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The bill also bars households from receiving subsidies or cost-sharing reductions until after they verify eligibility details like income, immigration status, health coverage status and place of residence, according to KFF.
Graves says adding administrative red tape to health plans is akin to driving an apple cart down a bumpy road. 
“The bumpier you make the road, the more apples will fall off the cart,” he said. 

Uncapping subsidy repayments

Another biggie: The bill would eliminate repayment caps for premium subsidies. 
Households get federal subsidies by estimating their annual income for the year, which dictates their total premium tax credit. They must repay any excess subsidies during tax season, if their annual income was larger than their initial estimate. 
Current law caps repayment for many households; but the House bill would require all premium tax credit recipients to repay the full amount of any excess, no matter their income, according to KFF.
While such a requirement sounds reasonable, it’s unreasonable and perhaps even “cruel” in practice, said KFF’s Altman.
“Income for low-income people can be volatile, and many Marketplace consumers are in hourly wage jobs, run their own businesses, or stitch together multiple jobs, which makes it challenging, if not impossible, for them to perfectly predict their income for the coming year,” he wrote. 

Curtailing use by immigrants

The House bill also limits marketplace insurance eligibility for some groups of legal immigrants, experts said. 
Starting Jan. 1, 2027, many lawfully present immigrants such as refugees, asylees and people with Temporary Protected Status would be ineligible for subsidized insurance on ACA exchanges, according to KFF.
Additionally, the bill would bar Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients in all states from buying insurance over ACA exchanges.
DACA recipients — a subset of the immigrant population known as “Dreamers” — are currently considered “lawfully present” for purposes of health coverage. That makes them eligible to enroll (and get subsidies and cost-sharing reductions) in 31 states plus the District of Columbia. More

A high-stakes U.S.-China call has yet to resolve a rare earth metals shortage.
Businesses say the shortage could halt production of cars and other industrial parts this summer.
Only some Chinese suppliers of U.S. companies have received six-month export licenses.

Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before U.S. trade delegation meet their Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019.
Aly Song | Reuters

BEIJING — A high-stakes call between the U.S. and Chinese presidents on Thursday has yet to resolve a global shortage of rare earth exports that businesses say could halt production of cars and other industrial parts this summer.
Rare earths, along with a broader group of critical minerals, are used in weapons, cars and other high-tech products. China has come to dominate the mining and production of those metals, and over the last two years has gradually started to restrict international sales.

In early April, China announced new export controls on seven rare earth elements. Unlike other measures, Beijing did not specify whether they were a response to heightened U.S. tensions.
After both sides reached their breakthrough trade agreement on May 12, China’s Commerce Ministry said on the same day that it held a meeting to strengthen export controls on critical minerals.  There was no broad rollback of the restrictions on seven rare earths.
This development came as a surprise to many in Washington, who had expected a repeal of the rare earths restrictions, since the trade agreement had said both countries would suspend most tariffs and roll back countermeasures for 90 days.

But so far, only some Chinese suppliers of U.S. companies have received six-month export licenses for rare earths, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said Friday, citing a survey of members from May 23 to 28.
Among respondents affected by rare earths controls, 75% said their existing supplies would run out within three months, the survey said. The controls mostly affected sectors involving research and development, resources, industrial and tech, but not consumer or services companies, the survey showed.

While China did not mention rare earths in its readout of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call with U.S. President Donald Trump, the long-awaited conversation itself signaled that both countries would continue to talk, following accusations from both sides of violating the trade agreement.

“I think we’re in very good shape with China and the trade deal,” Trump told reporters following Thursday’s call. “We have a deal with China, as you know, but we were straightening out some of the points having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things.”
He did not elaborate. But Trump said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet their Chinese counterparts at an unspecified time.
Further trade talks will likely bring the U.S. and China back to where things stood earlier this year, with limited tariffs, Jianwei Xu, senior economist at Natixis, said Friday. He said China could accelerate some rare earths export approvals for commercial use, in return for the U.S. easing its restrictions on some tech exports to China.
“I think both China and the U.S. have figured out that each other’s immediate weaknesses are not so much about tariffs, but more about non-tariff issues, especially in tech and rare earths,” Xu said.

Not just the U.S.

The impact of China’s restrictions on rare earths extends beyond U.S. companies.
Several European auto parts companies have already had to stop production, industry association CLEPA said Wednesday. It warned of more widespread impact in coming weeks, and said China has only approved about 25% of “hundreds of export license applications” that were submitted.
China has recently appeared to ease some export controls, albeit to some European companies, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said Friday. But it warned that it was insufficient to “prevent severe supply chain disruptions for many companies.”
“Our members are still struggling with the export licence approval process, due to both the time it takes and the lack of transparency, and this is now negatively impacting production lines in Europe and other countries,” European Chamber President Jens Eskelund said in a statement.

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Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor briefly suspended production of its Swift car due to China’s rare earth curbs, Reuters reported Thursday, citing two unnamed sources, with manufacturing expected to partially resume on June 13. A Suzuki Motor spokesperson was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.
“China’s export control measures are consistent with universal practices. Such measures are non-discriminatory and not targeted at any particular country,” China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said in response to a question about the Japanese automaker on Thursday, according to an official English-language transcript.
That echoed Ministry of Commerce Spokesperson He Yongqiang’s response to a question last week on Chinese companies restricting sales of a critical mineral stored outside the country at the Netherlands’ Rotterdam port.
She added during a separate press conference Thursday that China would approve applications for export licenses in line with its regulations, and to “promote convenient and compliant trade.” That’s according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese.

Increasing export controls

China’s restrictions on critical minerals have accelerated in the last several months.
Following export controls in Aug. 2023 on gallium and germanium, two metals used in chipmaking, China, a year later, then announced similar restrictions on exports of antimony, which is used in bullets, nuclear weapons production and lead-acid batteries. It can also strengthen other metals.
A few months later, China released a broader policy that tightened restrictions on exports of products that could have both civilian and military use. The export controls cover metals such as tungsten that the U.S. has deemed critical.
Tungsten is nearly as hard as a diamond, and is used in weapons, semiconductors and industrial cutting machines. 
There are about 300 grams (10.6 ounces) of tungsten in the average car, the majority of which is lost even with recycling, said Martin Hotwagner, market analyst at Austria-based Steel & Metal Market Research. As supplies run low, he expects Western companies will likely run out of tungsten later this summer.
— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report. More