New report says millennials are broke because they’re making choices out of order

By Kathleen Elkins of CNBC. Excerpts:

"86 percent of young people who got married before having kids are among the middle or top third of earners. Just 53 percent who put childbearing first have incomes in the middle or top third, meaning 47 percent of millennials who have a baby first are considered lower income."

"The new findings support the idea of a “success sequence, ” which was first introduced by Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution in 2009. It says that the path to economic success and away from poverty is to do things in order: 1) Earn at least a high school diploma, 2) get a full-time job, and 3) marry before having kids.

“Only three percent of millennials who followed all three steps, in sequence, are poor by the time they reach their late 20s or early 30s,” the AEI and IFS report. On the flip side, more than half (53 percent) of millennials who didn’t follow the sequence are in poverty."