The lack of young credit union members has been a hot topic for awhile. But how big is the deficit?

Follow my simple math if you will. I know that Gen Y is 16 to 30 in 2010, but for the sake of this argument (and 2008 data available from CUNA Market Research) let's look at the 18- to 24-year-old core of Gen Y.

In 2008, 4% of the credit union member base was between the age of 18 to 24, whereas the 18- to 24-year-old age group represented 17% of the general population (based on Census information from both the US and Canada). This equals a 13% deficit in this key age group within the overall credit union membership in 2008.

For round numbers, let's say there are 100 million credit union members in North America. This means that in 2008, there were 4 million 18- to 24-year-old credit union members. If the ideal make-up of the overall credit union membership followed the actual population, we should have had 17 million members in this age group. That means that in 2008, we were missing 13 million 18- to 24-year-old members.

If you follow my logic (and the steep downhill trajectory of the above graph) the slide has most likely continued over the past two years. 

Where is the master plan to reverse the trend? There are a few dozen credit unions in North America actively pursuing Gen Y with integrated marketing programs, but with close to 9,000 credit unions in the US and Canada, this is simply not enough. The lack of young credit union members needs to move from hot topic of discussion to real action. There is incredible apathy on the subject—lip service will not get it done.

Tim

P.S. I really hope someone has data to disprove my simple math.