• by Masha Geller , September 3, 2003

Children are our future, and the future holds about $172 billion in spending money.

According to the findings of Harris Interactive YouthPulse, an online study of 3,432 respondents, American kids, teenagers, and young adults, aged 8 to 21, have annual incomes totaling $211 billion and this group is spending approximately $172 billion per year.

According to Harris, pre-teens (ages 8-12) spend $19.1 billion annually, or $946 per capita; teens (ages 13-19) spend $94.7 billion annually, or $3,309 per capita; and young adults (ages 20-21) spend $61.3 billion annually, or $7,389 per capita.

More importantly, this study shows that 15% of youth spending is done online (boys remain more comfortable with ecommerce, as they spend 1.7 times as much as girls do online.) Pair that with Harris' earlier study, which found that while teens and young adults consume many different types of media, the Internet surpasses them all in the amount of time spent, and you've got a very strong argument for adding the web to any media plan with a young target.

In an average week, according to Harris, this demographic spends 16.7 hours online, excluding email, 13.6 hours watching TV, 12 hours listening to the radio, 7.7 hours on the phone, and 6 hours reading books and magazines (personal, not scholastic).

"There are more than 57 million individuals in the 8-21 age group, and their influence on the consumer economy is immense," said John Geraci, vice president of youth research at Harris Interactive. "Generation Y's needs and opinions drive many adult purchase decisions, and they, literally, represent the future market for most consumer brands."