Have you heard? Millennials have the worst credit scores of any generation. The data point plays well with one of Americans' favorite pastimes: discussing the dismal state of the nation's youngest consumers.

The average 19- to 34-year-old has a credit score of 625, but it's 650 for Gen X (35-49), 709 for baby boomers and the Greatest Generation (together, those generations include everyone older than 50). The national average is 667. The data comes from credit bureau Experian and uses the VantageScore 3.0 credit score range, which goes from 300 to 850.

Yes, millennials have the lowest average credit score of American adults, but that statistic is neither surprising nor helpful. Building a good credit score takes time, and having poor credit as a young person doesn't mean you'll always have poor credit. It's like a bad haircut: You have to deal with it for a while, figure out how to make it work while it's in the awkward stages, but eventually, by staying patient and resisting making decisions that can make a bad situation worse, it'll grow out. (That works both ways: Having a great credit score now doesn't mean you always will, just like someone with a great hairstyle can easily be set back with a poorly timed buzz cut.) We explain what a good credit score is here.

If you don't have any credit to your name, it's not impossible to get a credit card with no credit, but you'll likely have to start with something like a secured credit card. If you use them smartly, credit cards can be great credit-building tools.

So, young people with not-so-great credit, here's what you can do to improve your situation.

Pay Your Bills on Time

If you have credit cards or loans (student loans, probably), make the payments on time. Your payment history has the greatest impact on your credit scores. Setting your bills to autopay is a great way to ensure that happens, but you need to make sure you have enough money in the bank to cover those bills, and you also need to check to make sure the payments go through.

Keep Your Credit Card Balances Low

According to the Experian data, millennials had the lowest average credit card balance of any generation: $3,403. (National average is $5,340.) At the same time, millennials used more of their available credit than any other generation: 43%. (National average is 34%.) This indicates that millennials, on average, have lower credit limits than older consumers, so whether or not millennials can afford their credit card bills is irrelevant — what matters is that balance-to-limit ratio, which should be as low as possible if you want a good credit score.