It’s no secret that the cost of living has been on the rise, and it’s hit millennials particularly hard.
In fact, a recent survey from Herbalife found that 61 percent of Americans ages 27 to 42 currently have a side hustle just to make ends meet.
Forty percent of respondents started their side hustle to deal with the rising cost of living. Another 38 percent said they wanted to be less reliant on a single source of income, while 36 percent simply wanted to have a disposable income. Who can blame them?
Diane Mulcahy, author of The Gig Economy, shared with RELEVANT why millennials are much more likely to have a side hustle than other generations.
“When I talk to millennials, I think two things really come up,” she said. “One is that they’re very aware that there’s no job security, so they’re the least likely generation to kind of settle into a full-time job and assume that everything’s going to be OK. The other reason is clearly economic. Most millennials — at least on the professional end who have been to college — have significant debt and a lot of them are looking for ways to either build a financial cushion or reduce their debt faster.”
Of course, not all side hustles are created equal. During the height of the pandemic, ride-sharing and food-delivery gigs were at an all-time high, but the survey found that the most common side hustles these days include selling products on e-commerce websites, content creation, and writing, editing or proofreading.
