It’s a good thing too, because if current economic trends continue they’re going to need their savings.

Meghan Keenan of Red Alert Politics reports.

Millennials actually better than their parents with saving money for the future

Millennials get their fair share of criticism from Gen-Xers and baby boomers – that they are rude, immature, not ready for jobs or the real world – yet they are actually better than their elders at things like saving money.

According to several investment bankers on a panel hosted by the Council for Economic Education Wednesday, Americans that were born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, are actually better savers than other generations.

Millennials are “the second-most conservative group of investors, right behind their grandparents,” panelist Sallie Krawcheck, former president of global wealth and investment management for Bank of America Corp. said during the panel.

It seems that Millennials are learning through experience – or rather through watching their parent’s experiences.

It’s because “they saw their parents take such financial setbacks during the crisis and the subsequent recession,” panelist Mellody Hobson, the president of Ariel Investments added.

It doesn’t help that Millennials are projected to live and work longer than their parents, thus they are forced to think differently about saving for retirement.

“More students say they’re talking about economics with their friends and family,” than they were before the downturn, Jack Buckley, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told The Wall Street Journal. “Economics is more a part of their lives than it was in 2006.”

They may be more aware of the financial crisis but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better informed about economics, however. The Wall Street Journal reports that while more students are taking economics classes than they were six years ago, test scores have not improved much since 2006.