
For first time since 1880s, more young Americans live with parents than partner - jseliger
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/05/pew-young-adults-parents-housing/483995/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticCities+%28CityLab%29
======
rwhitman
So much of the most comfortable housing stock in America is single-family
"McMansion" type homes. The type of suburban detached house that likely the
majority of middle-class American millennials grew up in.

For a young adult in the current economic climate, the _only_ way you're
living in one of these cushy homes is if you're living with your parents.

You can't rent one very easily, since they can't be divided up into multiple
units or rented at all due to zoning and HOAs. Not to mention it's not typical
to be a renter in these neighborhoods to begin with, so even finding a rental
is nearly impossible in some areas.

Then of course, after the housing bubble crashed and the subsidies went away,
a mortgage for one of these became a big challenge to achieve, and who has the
savings sitting around for upkeep and emergency maintenance?

Boomer parents, and a handful of lucky gen-xers are pretty much the only
people who could comfortably acquire and hold onto these houses, so it only
makes sense that sticking to them like glue is the best strategy if you wanted
one.

And there's also the fact that it's just _not cool_ to live in the 'burbs,
where you grew up, in the first place. The mental justification has to be
"well I'm saving money at least". Saving money, means crashing with the
parents. After all, it's "just temporary".

Those are at least my very subjective observations that might be overlooked in
that study...

~~~
majormajor
> For a young adult in the current economic climate, the only way you're
> living in one of these cushy homes is if you're living with your parents.

This is a very coastal/urban-centric view, IME. The large majority of my
social circle growing up in suburban Dallas (a) still lives in suburban Dallas
and (b) found a detached home before age 30 (if not 25). I moved away from the
suburbs, and to a big coastal city, and so did almost "everyone I know" out
here (with a lot of selection bias), but judging from that and housing prices
in those crazy markets doesn't work for extrapolating to the country as a
whole.

Of the ones still living at home, I don't know anyone thinking "it would be
just as cool to have my own place, so might as well save money." The causality
is reversed: "I'm broke, so might as well save as much money as possible, and
my parents' place is big."

"Not cool" starts being a lot less relevant pretty quickly after getting out
of college for most people, IME. Suburban houses are bigger than apartments.
They're less noisy. They're more pet friendly. You have a garage for
storage/workshopping/whatever. You have more space for starting a family. All
those reasons still apply as much as they ever did, the big change from ten
years ago to today is economic, not around coolness.

~~~
Rumudiez
Keeping in mind that a large portion of these people live in areas outside of
Dallas, with the average home price only several hundred grand above $150k[1].

In the greater Seattle area you'd be stressed to find a back alley condo for
that cheap. My rent in the outskirts of Redmond for a 3 bedroom apartment is
more than my mother's mortgage for her 5 bedroom house in Bellevue, which,
despite being a 70 year old split-level home with low ceilings and a hill for
a lot in a forgotten neighborhood without so much as one sidewalk, was
appraised two years ago for over $750,000.

I can afford to live on my own, but hell if I can afford a reasonable down
payment on a house within 25 miles of where I work.

1\. [http://www.zillow.com/dallas-tx/home-
values/](http://www.zillow.com/dallas-tx/home-values/)

~~~
dionidium
Well, right, which is why the parent said it was a "very coastal/urban-centric
view."

What he's describing about Dallas is true for the nearly 200 million Americans
who live in the Midwest and the South. Cheap housing is the _norm_ in the
United States. I'm not bothered by people on the coasts complaining about
housing costs, but you look foolish when you make generalizations about your
_generation_ that don't apply to the majority of the country.

~~~
vasilipupkin
Is it cheap relative to incomes in that area ? Sure, lots of cheap houses in
areas with low incomes. So?

~~~
tropo
Yes.

You're getting 1.5x the income (usually with longer hours) and paying 5x for
the house.

You're also paying more for other random stuff like groceries, eating out,
gasoline, electricity, etc.

You're also paying lots more for taxes. Some states have no income tax. Some
states have no sales tax. Some have neither!

~~~
vasilipupkin
Well, maybe 1.5 the salary, but I bet total comp at Google in SF is way more
than 1.5x best Ohio employers. But there is also California weather and NY
culture that account for part of the cost of living premium. Don't think that
has any value ? Great for you, you can live in Decatur. Ilinois.

~~~
dionidium
Of course, but Google is an outlier in just about every sense. _Most_ people
in San Francisco don't earn the equivalent of Google's total comp.

Also, what's this nonsense about Decatur, Illinois? St. Louis and Cincinnati
and Nashville and Pittsburgh and so on all have a bunch of pre-WWII, walkable,
interesting neighborhoods, with little restaurants and bars and people putting
on poetry readings and bands playing in basement clubs and jazz quartets
playing at wine and cheese parties and concert halls that host national acts
and major sports franchises and yuppies and hipsters and Python Meetups and
comedy clubs and big pretty parks and coffee shops and whatever else you can
think of.

No, they are emphatically _not_ like San Francisco or NYC. But don't be silly.
_Millions_ of people live in those places. Did you really think they're all
just skipping stones and waiting to die?

I'm quite glad I grew up here, because I think I'd be just the type of asshole
who'd make jokes about Decatur, Illinois had I not. And you know what? I'd
have been _wrong_.

~~~
vasilipupkin
Sure, they do have all those neighborhoods. The price differential reflects
what people are willing to pay for one vs the other. The point about Decatur,
Illinois is simply that Decatur Illinois lacks a lot of what SF has, which is
why it's cheaper. It's a factual statement, not a value judgement

~~~
dionidium
You'll get no argument from me here. But I think an erroneous value judgement
is what's driving that demand. San Francisco is an _incredible_ place. And a
Ferrari is an _incredible_ car. But lots of normal people would be better off
realizing they can't afford the Ferrari and buying a Camry. It's not as bad as
they think.

And to really strain this metaphor, people who have all their wealth tied up
in a Ferrari would be a lot better off if they sold it and used the gains to
live a comfortable life.

~~~
ghaff
On good trips there, I can certainly understand the attractions of the Bay
area (though I'm probably less sold on the city itself). However IMO way too
many people, especially in tech circles, have convinced themselves that life
isn't worth living if they can't live and work there whatever the other
lifestyle tradeoffs. (Which leads to the corollary that someone needs to do
something to make it possible for them to do so.)

------
bluedino
In other countries it's common to live with your parents until you're married,
or even a little bit past that. In America it's looked down upon. Nothing
wrong with staying home, saving money (even if you pay rent to your parents,
it's cheaper than living on your own). You can save money, pay for school, or
not be forced to work a job by staying at home longer.

~~~
carsongross
Yes, but if the current young generation of americans is poorer than the
preceding generations (a conclusion I think is inescapable at this point),
then it is worthwhile considering _why_.

The world is certainly richer than it was in the 80s. We are vastly more
efficient at producing all sorts of goods. So, then, why is the current
generation of Americans unable to afford what was available to the middle
class previously?

I believe that the answers to this crucial question are obscure and are
unlikely to be found in conventional economic and political analysis.

~~~
UncleOxidant
> The world is certainly richer than it was in the 80s

It's debatable. I was in my 20's in the 80's. I was able to buy a 3br/2ba,
1500sq ft. house when I was 26. I had my school loans paid off a couple of
years after I graduated - that's not happening for 20-somethings now.

> I believe that the answers to this crucial question are obscure

I don't think they're so obscure. If we are wealthier now, then it's likely
that the wealth is in much fewer hands than it was in the 80's and before.
Income stagnation. Wealth accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. Back in the
1860's Marx told us this is what happens in Capitalist economies. While you
may not agree with his prescription (and I certainly don't agree with most of
it) his diagnosis was pretty much spot on.

~~~
gozur88
>It's debatable. I was in my 20's in the 80's. I was able to buy a 3br/2ba,
1500sq ft. house when I was 26. I had my school loans paid off a couple of
years after I graduated - that's not happening for 20-somethings now.

No, it's really not debatable the world is richer than in the 80s. Much of
that wealth has been accumulating outside the US, though, particularly in
India and China.

With interest rates as low as they are you could definitely get into a 1500 sq
ft. house by age 26 today. You just can't do it in the places many 26 year
olds want to live.

~~~
Grishnakh
There's no way that 26-year-olds can afford a 1500sf house in those areas
because the only jobs available are at Walmart. The places where 26-year-olds
can get good-paying jobs are also places where the real estate is much more
expensive.

~~~
gozur88
"No way"? In a lot of place you can get a 1500 sq ft house for under $150k.

[https://www.discover.com/home-loans/blog/how-expensive-is-
yo...](https://www.discover.com/home-loans/blog/how-expensive-is-your-state)

At current interest rates you can make payments on a $150k home if you make
$15/hr.

[http://michaelbluejay.com/house/howmuchhome.html](http://michaelbluejay.com/house/howmuchhome.html)

Where in the country can you _not_ make $15/hr by age 26?

~~~
Grishnakh
>Where in the country can you not make $15/hr by age 26?

Any town where the only jobs are at Walmart and the feed-and-seed store.
Walmart doesn't pay those kinds of wages in rural locations (or probably
anywhere else, unless you're a manager).

------
louisswiss
I wonder how the average amount of free space per dwelling has changed over
the last 50 or so years...

Perhaps this trend could be explained to some extent by the fact(?) that mommy
& daddy have a lot more space at home nowadays than daddy's parents did when
he turned 18, making living with the parents more attractive to today's young
adults than it was to prior generations.

Not at all suggesting this would be the only likely factor, of course.

~~~
slg
Houses today are much bigger. This is one of those things that people often
forget when comparing current economic markers or generations to the past. Our
standard of living is simply much higher today. The average house had
approximately 500 sqft per person in 1973 but had increased by roughly 65% by
2010.

Sources:

\-
[https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf](https://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf)

\- [http://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-
ho...](http://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-
in-the-us/)

~~~
lkrubner
The article strongly refutes your assertion that "Our standard of living is
simply much higher today."

Obviously the standard of living is in decline. An article such as this
provides some evidence, as does the well known fact that the male median wage
has been in decline since 1973.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I don't see any such refutation in the OP. And our standard of living is
obviously far higher than at any time in the past. Even given wage (lack of)
changes, the access to more and better medicines, having at our fingertips the
entire artistic output of the history of the world, safer and longer-lasting
cars, longer life expectancy, ubiquitous and free to nearly-free instantaneous
communication, ubiquitous good sanitation, refrigeration, lower crime rates,
lower pollution, and on and on.

I can't fathom how anyone can claim that virtually any American is better off
than his counterpart from any time in the past. So let's do a thought
experiment: can you pick a past time in USA history where you'd like to be
transported, keeping everything else (such as your economic quintile) equal,
where you'd be better off? Or forget about keeping things equal, would you
rather go back a hundred years and be in John Rockefeller's shoes? There's a
good argument to be made [1] that you're better off than he was.

[1]
[http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html](http://cafehayek.com/2016/02/40405.html)

~~~
toomuchtodo
I'd give up current times to go back to the 50s-70s where you could
comfortably live on one income in the suburbs.

I don't much care for safer cars, longer life expectancy, instant world wide
communications compared to the freedom of living a much better life during one
of the most prosperous times in US history. Quality of life experiences feels
like it was much better before the 21st century race to the bottom. What's the
point of living "better" if you're going to be chained to a desk or job for
50-60 years, or constantly have to retrain decade after decade?

~~~
flubert
>where you could comfortably live on one income in the suburbs.

Does anyone have statistics on how many "traditional" single-income households
there are in the U.S.? I live with my wife and four kids (home schooled) in a
fairly large house, with a single income under that is apparently under the
starting salaries for newly minted software-engineering graduates in the big
urban areas.

~~~
toomuchtodo
[http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/5-facts-
abou...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/5-facts-about-todays-
fathers/ft_dual-income-households-1960-2012-2/)

------
hristov
This is the result of our society screwing over the middle class and working
people in general for many generations. It used to be the average joe could
get a factory job after graduating highschool and be able to afford a modest
home and start a family on a single person's income.

But now jobs pay badly and housing is expensive. And in the few places with
high paying jobs, housing is so expensive that it makes up for it easily.

~~~
dionidium
No, there's something different happening. Cheap housing is the _norm_ in the
Midwest (as has been covered elsewhere in this thread), yet kids there are
still choosing to stay at home longer.

------
dforrestwilson
My wife, myself, and my baby are all moving back in with the parents in a few
months time. They have a McMansion, so from a cost and space efficiency
standpoint it makes great sense. Plus, free baby sitting.

It has always weirded me out how easily people discount the benefits of
learning from their elders in the states. We feel lucky to give our daughter a
lot of exposure to decades of life experience and wisdom.

~~~
kilroy123
I think there is more family dysfunction than other cultures. This is purely
speculative, and based on my own experience. I could NOT live with my family.
It would be non-stop fighting and absolute dysfunction.

~~~
jupiter90000
This is always interesting to think about. In the US, living with parents
after adult age seems to equate to enmeshment and codependency between parent
and child. I think codependency is particularly definable in cultures like
America's where individualism is valued. An Asian family doing the same thing
may be seen as not-codependent due to a culture of not going against your
family and collectivism rather than individualism. I would go insane living
with my family or at least have a reduced sense of freedom, but I'm American
so I've got the freedom and individualism values deeply embedded.

~~~
whatever_dude
I believe other cultures have just as much of a sense of freedom and
individualism, but the family dynamics are different in a way that _parents
themselves_ understand that freedom.

If you moved back with your parents, I assume the problems would be as much
yours as theirs. As if they would expect to still be treating you as a child.
I've seen that with all my American friends and relatives and that's the
reason all of them hate being home: they cannot stand their parents treating
them as kids. It's a really weird thing.

In other cultures I have experience with (South America), the kids'
individualism and freedom grow as they grow, even if they're under the same
roof. In other words, their identity comes from their own growth, not from
being sent away. It's common for people to still live with their parents well
into their 30s -- normally, until they get married, although it's common to
just move your partner in. And when that happens, they normally share (and
gradually take over) the costs and burden of living in the house.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That requires the parents to change the way that they interact with their
children over time. That can be hard, especially if you never saw an example
of it while growing up.

------
xirdstl
Perhaps the peak romantic-cohabitation in the 1960s is the anomaly, and we're
now retreating back towards something more sustainable. Consider that it is
normal to live with parents in many other countries.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Why not retreat back towards subsistence farming then? I can't believe I see
these things on HN!

~~~
pluma
In Germany there have actually been serious discussions (both amongst social
democrats and conservatives) about "multi-generation living" as a model to
improve the well-being of families with children and the elderly.

The rationale goes that grandparents can look after the children while the
parents are out earning money and in turn the parents can eventually take care
of the aging grandparents as long as they don't need intensive care.

The argument being that this arrangement was historically the norm and worked
out favourably for everyone compared to the modern "everyone for themselves"
model where overworked parents neglect their children and the elderly can't
age in grace because nobody has the time to look after them.

I'm not saying whether this argument is valid or realistic, but "let's rethink
best practices" certainly isn't as exotic as you may think, even if this
proposal seemingly runs counter to the individualism that is presently the
cultural norm.

EDIT: The model projects in Germany also aren't cases of economic desperation
either. These are middle-class families who think doing this is beneficial for
their children. Maybe one should point out that "living together" in this case
doesn't mean the same thing as "sharing an apartment" \-- it's more of a
"close neighbour" thing. So you could argue it's a bit hypocritical.

~~~
guard-of-terra
The proposals about multi-generation living are worth considering, but they
can't be used as an excuse to bone the younger generation and call it "the
norm". And that's what I observe happening.

I don't think this arrangement was "historically the norm" for city dwellers.
There, you had either nuclear families, or singles, or wealthy families
complete with servants and maids.

In countryside, where you live is not important as long as you have land to
grow food on and there's no drought.

But surely everybody in your family have their own idea what city they want to
live in. It's sufficiently hard to negotiate this with your partner in nuclear
family! Good look doing it with all those grandparents.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
> There, you had either nuclear families, or singles, or wealthy families
> complete with servants and maids.

On what are you basing this?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Singles always arrived in cities from countryside, where they formed families,
and they could only have multi-gen families after a few generations. By then
they had money for maids.

------
aeharding
This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- the last sentence brings this up: "What
all of these shifting dynamics mean for the future of housing, families, and
work has yet to fully emerge."

Just look at other developed countries where living with parents is normal.
Could this just be the US lifestyle evolving? It looks like a pretty regular
trend over the last ~50 years.

------
ThomPete
The number one elephant in the room is that the cost of living is increasing
while most salaries are not.

It was supposed to be the other way around but urbanization seems to be a
major factor for why that doesn't happen mostly because of the increasing
value of real-estate that comes with urbanization.

~~~
eru
Not the first time this happened. Check out "Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry
into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase
of Wealth: The Remedy"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty)),
the book that kicked off the Progressive Era.

~~~
ThomPete
Ahh yes, Geoism. I have a lot of sympathy for some of the thinking there.

~~~
eru
Wikipedia also has
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism)
which is essetially the same thing but might appeal more to the traditional
libertarian hacker demographic.

In German we have Silvio Gesell and his Freiwirtschaft.

------
jhallenworld
There are interesting possibilities if you can compromise on the city. For
example, take Worcester MA (2nd largest city in New England, still close to
the high-tech areas). In Worcester you can buy a "triple-decker" (three three-
bedroom apartments) for $400K or less. Rent is ~$1100 / unit, so this can
easily pay for the mortgage.

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/18-Ferdinand-ST-Worcester-
MA-016...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/18-Ferdinand-ST-Worcester-MA-01603_rb/)

Companies no longer offer pensions, so better start your rental empire now.

~~~
trgn
yep. but if you have the leftover income and time to invest and maintain
rental property, you also have the leftover income and time to research and
invest in stock market. or study for a professional degree with higher salary,
or seduce and mary a rich heiress, etc... all those will get you more money in
the end.

I'm not being dismissive though, I agree with you. In a handful of affluent
metros, directing some of your disposal income in the rental market is just a
non-starter. In the majority of the country, you at least have that option.

------
tluyben2
It's been a long time since uni and my first company but at that time (90s) it
was definitely not normal in my circles to live with your parents. You were
considered rather 'sad' if you did. But that's only perception/peer pressure;
there are reasons to live with your parents (financial is one). However
another thing is that I know almost no one who _could_ live with their
parents; that is not about liking or not liking, but more about that you
seriously want your own space when you get to a certain age and my parents
would be driving me bonkers and vice versa.

~~~
slantyyz
>> It's been a long time since uni and my first company but at that time (90s)
it was definitely not normal in my circles to live with your parents
(financial mostly I guess).

I don't have any numbers to back it up, but my experience (I think we're of a
similar age) was that this was true mainly for "white people with an English
speaking background".

Most of my friends with an ethnic background did not have any stigmas related
to living with their parents prior to marriage. This includes people who might
otherwise be considered white but whose parents spoke a different language at
home (Italian, Greek, Portuguese), etc. Granted, I live in Canada - there
seems to be much less pressure for immigrants to assimilate vs in the US.

~~~
tluyben2
That might be very true; this was in the Netherlands in a 'prestigious'
math/cs major; there were no (0) people with an ethnic background there. Come
to think of it, we had no people with ethnic backgrounds in the electronics
minor I did either.

I live in Spain now and it's normal here to stay with your parents until, what
is in US tv shows referred to as, far beyond serial killer age.

------
ghaff
The headline is one specific framing of the research. The more obvious
takeaway for me is that "married or cohabitating in own household" has dropped
significantly while living with parents, living alone/single
parents/roommates, living with other relatives/group living situations have
_all_ gone up. (The study doesn't seem to break out just living alone.)

So I'm not sure the degree to which I'm inclined to read this study as "young
people moving in with parents" so much as "young people _not_ moving in with
partners."

------
shanemhansen
I think that in the future we will look back at current US living customs as a
fad. The nuclear family will pass away and living in a big household with an
extended family will be more common. I don't think that's necessarily a bad
thing.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Mobility in the US is high compared to many other countries. It's hard to pull
off multi-generation housing when you live 2000 miles away.

~~~
jotux
Yes, it's higher than other countries, but the majority of Americans still
live near their parents.

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-
fa...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/24/upshot/24up-family.html)

------
return0
Since the percentage of people living alone hasn't changed for the same
period, it seems there is a direct shift from Spouse -> back to Parents, or
not making the step from Parents->Spouse. The percentages seem to exactly
cancel each other. I 'm not sure if there is an economic argument to make
here. It seems like a shift away from long-term commitments and relationships.
Or that relationships cost too much.

~~~
ghaff
I'm looking at the original research [1] and it looks as if the percentage of
people living alone or as single parents has increased significantly (like
3-5x). Which doesn't invalidate your point.

The headline here should be that married or cohabitating has dropped and _all_
the other categories have increased.

[1][http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/for-first-time-
in-...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/05/24/for-first-time-in-modern-
era-living-with-parents-edges-out-other-living-arrangements-for-18-to-34-year-
olds/st_2016-05-24_young-adults-living-01/)

~~~
return0
Looking at the other graphs, the increase in living alone happened decades
ago, while the shift to living with parents is very recent.

------
jupiter90000
I think this is due to economics for sure, but also I think this generation,
of which I'm barely part of by the age range, has much less balls and guts
than the recent previous generations.

Yes the quality of life is better, but now we have generation that just wants
to coast along and ride off the successes of parents and forefathers/mothers.
"I don't care if I have a shitty job and live in my parents basement, I have a
smart phone and a car my parents gave me. I won't fight for better wages a
better world, or my country because I'll miss watching survivor tonight.
Hopefully someone gets elected to fix everything because I am too busy on
facebook to vote and refuse to fight to have a life I want and can respect
since it brings up uncomfortable feelings and takes effort."

I know I'm generalizing, but I'm disgusted in general with the lack of effort
and spirit people in my generation seem to be putting into doing something
about changing this shit. Let's just go back to our comfort cave at mom's and
chill instead of giving a fuck.

~~~
overgryphon
Private student loans are often cosigned by older family members. It doesn't
make sense to take risks when defaulting on your student loans puts your
parent's housing at risk.

Your comment places you likely in your early 30s, meaning you probably entered
the job market before the recession when there were more jobs. If you went to
college, you went before the next 7-10 years of continued tuition increases.

The realities of the economics facing young people today aren't so simple as
your comment suggests. Most of those young people are living at home to be
frugal. And no young person worries about missing a show, its all streaming
anyways.

~~~
jupiter90000
I hear you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

------
morgante
One thing which jumps out to me is that "other living arrangement" was higher
back at the turn of the 20th century. Does anyone have any insight into why it
was so high then but has declined since?

The reason this surprises me is that college attendance (and, thus, living in
dorms) was much lower then. What were these other living arrangements that so
many people were living in?

~~~
poulsbohemian
If I had to guess, boarding houses / rented rooms. If you look at census
records for my neighborhood from a 100 years ago, nearly every household had
non-family boarders.

------
excalibur
So does "other living arrangement" include prison?

~~~
ghaff
yes. And group situations such as dorms.

------
ignu
It's really a shame that our culture ascribes living on your own to status.

A new living space to heat, cool, light and manage just to live up to our
culture's view of success is incredibly wasteful.

~~~
phil248
The size of my apartment, which houses one person, is a tiny fraction of the
size of the house I grew up in, which housed 3 people. Living on my own is
dramatically less wasteful than even 6 or 7 people living in that big house.

So it depends on the spaces in question. Urban living is typically compact and
economical. Suburban living is expansive, what with the yards, cars and multi-
mile trips to the store.

------
k__
Strange.

Living alone is expensive, yes, but living with your partner shouldn't be much
more expensive than living with your parents.

~~~
mikeyouse
On the coasts this isn't true since long time home owners (like parents) have
been in their houses for decades and are insulated from the crazy property
value increases. If you are a 30-year old in San Francisco, the difference
between living with your parents and paying 1/3 of the mortgage in a house
they've owned for 20 years and living with a partner and paying 1/2 the rent
of a new apartment would literally be somewhere on the order of $1,500/month.

~~~
CaptSpify
IME: Apartments are expensive, _and_ they have shitty features. Crappy sinks,
bad laundry services, poor noise insulation, etc.

For many people, the options are: leave my parents large house, with nice
amenities, and pay a lot of money to live in a crappy, small apartment for
more money.

Doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

~~~
nostrebored
Grow as a fully functional individual with life skills and the ability to
function independently or have decisions made for me and deal with bringing my
friends, romantic partners, etc. around to meet my parents?

You're right, that's a very easy choice, but I think we reached different
conclusions.

~~~
CaptSpify
FWIW: I agree with you. Living with my family would be a nightmare, but I
think there are some major benefits from staying at home

------
whybroke
Create a society that does it's best to drive housing prices up faster than
wages and this is the necessary result. This and homelessness and the
strangulation of nascent innovative cities like Portland (and Vancouver).

Of course no politician is going to advocate driving down housing prices
because, in lieu of an adequate retirement system, vast swathes of the
populace are entirely dependent on that housing Ponzi scheme for their old
age. Its disruption is unthinkable to them. That and the inordinate influence
of the mortgage industry.

So loudly blaming rent control and zoning is the prefect way to do absolutely
nothing about the problem as neither of these have any but the most minimal
impact on the situation. If you wanted to guarantee the next generation has it
even harder, limiting the conversation to these essentially irrelevant points
would be the perfect way.

------
searine
Depression era children created the reforms that ushered in an era of plenty,
which was then slowly eroded until we are back where we started.

We can only hope that the Great Recession created another generation that will
fight for the economic reforms necessary to regain our dignity.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> We can only hope that the Great Recession created another generation that
> will fight for the economic reforms necessary to regain our dignity.

Not so far, it hasn't.

~~~
searine
The units of history are large.

It hasn't even been a decade since the crash, and people don't easily forget.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
How long after the crash of 1929 were the reforms? Well, there was the
Securities Act of 1933, the start of the SEC in 1934, the FDIC in 1933, and
Glass-Steagall in 1933. So, most of it was four to five years after.

We are now eight years after 2008. What's happened? Not very much, from my
view.

> people don't easily forget.

I think that 2008 wasn't nearly as bad as 1929, and people therefore forget
much more easily.

~~~
hackbinary
Gordon Brown saved what was left of the world economy by bailing out RBS,
Lloyds, and BoS, and forced the US to similarly bail out several of the US
banks and auto manufacturers.

It could have been a lot worse.

------
epalmer
So I am one of these statistics. I have an 18 year old that will graduate high
school in June. She will take a gap year and live at home working for
Americorps Vista help disadvantaged schools with STEM programs. She will then
attend the Olin College of Engineering [0]

My oldest is 23 and graduated in May of 2015 from a 4 year liberal arts
university. She is working part time in our local library system. She wants to
be a librarian which requires a Master's of Library Science (MLS). So she will
attend an online program at Florida State for an MLS next fall.

In the library system she works in, library associates are expected to give 2
to 5 years of part time work before they can go full time. The pay is okay,
not great. None of her peers live on their own. At 20 to 24 hours a week they
just can't pay for a place of their own (renting or buying). Full time work
comes with a MLS.

We think the library system is taking advantage of minimal benefits for part
timers and are taking advantage of these youths. But the passion of people
that want to work in libraries have them working part time and making the
sacrifice of living at home.

My daughter pays minimal rent to us, her auto insurance, gas, and medical co-
pays. She saves everything else and when she starts graduate school her
savings will start to evaporate.

We have a few friends that have children living at home. The reasons are
varied. One is because of some mental health challenges. Some for living at
home and attending a local college full time to save money on room and board.
Some because they work part time and go to school like our child.

Her mom and I are 100% comfortable with this. We have some pseudo empty nester
rules in place to help us have more freedom from our children and the same for
them. However we still try to eat dinner together most nights. This is the
together time that binds us as a family.

Ten years ago I would not have imagined this situation but it is what it is.

For the record we live in a coastal state in the US (Virginia) but in the
center of the state (Richmond).

[0] [http://olin.edu/](http://olin.edu/)

Edit: fixed typo

------
hackbinary
I blame the baby-boomers and their "It is all mine attitude". The baby-boomers
have systematically dismantled all of the social advances since WWI. This is
yet another indictment of their greed.

~~~
prewett
I'd like to see some sources for that, and less unsubstantiated inflamatory
rhetoric. Trump is giving us more than enough of that.

Also, baby-boomers didn't happen until after WWII, and there are a lot more
social services [welfare, social security, medicare, Obamacare, more trust in
banks thanks to FDIC] and regarding social advances, women are freer, the
civil rights movement happened, the sexual revolution happened, and
homosexuality is socially accepted [I, personally, don't think the latter two
are positive developments, but I mention them because I am in the minority].
You have baby-boomers to thank for a lot of that. Social advances since WWI?
Yep, lots! "Dismantled" is hardly the word to use for the 20th century.

~~~
hackbinary
All of the social advances happened despite the Babyboomers, and largely
because of the 'Greatest Generation.' The Babyboomers have engaged in a
systematic reduction in taxes since the 1980's when they took over the
economy, and therefore government's abilties to fund things like education.
The babyboomers had free and lowcost education across most western countries,
yet now most young people now graduating from university now leave with
crippling levels of (student) debt.

Our infrastructure is crumbling, our young are getting poorer and poorer
education and we are told we can not afford these public services as tax
receipts go down. The babyboomers have been at the wheel for the last 30
years, and they have left us a mess to clean up from their greed.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10171591/10-Bab...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10171591/10-Baby-
Boomer-entitlements-todays-youth-wont-have.html)

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/who-
dest...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/who-destroyed-
the-economy-the-case-against-the-baby-boomers/263291/)

[https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/are-we-about-to-let-all-of-
th...](https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/are-we-about-to-let-all-of-the-baby-
boomers-off-the-hook-please-no)

------
leepowers
Reading the article what's striking is that while living with parents has now
surpassed it's 1880 level of 30%, it has otherwise remained mostly stable,
peaking at 35% in 1940. The big change is in the the decline in
married/cohabiting households, which as nearly halved since 1960 (from 62% to
32%)

A couple buying a house during our current period of declining wages is hard
enough. Doing it yourself is even more difficult, especially without a college
degree or other marketable skills.

------
tn13
A lot of people are seeing this as a problem. I think there are many positives
to it.

1\. Over years American cities have built their specialties. It is much easier
for children to find job in same field as their parents and settle in the same
city as their parents.

2\. More Americans now own housing makes sense to stay with parents.

3\. Millennials have invested more in education and other things than spending
money on rent.

Very likely these millennials would end up saving more and form the backbone
of american middle class over next 20 years.

------
cwbrandsma
I'm planning on this happening to me right now. Basically, I'm not ruling out
the possibility of my kids living with us until they are about 25. Too many
things are working against them. College is too expensive, housing will be
insane, and there is really no chance of their first jobs to be enough to pay
for anything other than rent.

I can't even rule out them getting married and still having to live with us.

------
CM30
But how does this compare to in other countries? I suspect the percentage is
significantly higher in Europe (especially smaller countries like the UK), and
higher still in parts of Asia like Japan. If this is so common in the US
(where cheap housing is apparently the norm), it makes you wonder how it
compares in other places where space is more limited...

------
momchil
> In 2014, 28% of young men were living with a spouse or partner in their own
> home, while 35% were living in the home of their parent(s). Young women,
> meanwhile, are actually still more likely to be living with a spouse or
> partner (35 percent) than they are to be living with their parents (29
> percent).

Can someone please explain to me how this works -- if there is an approx equal
number of women and men, then at least (35%-28%) = 7% of women are living with
a spouse or partner who is NOT a man. If we account for gay couples, assuming
there are the same number of female and male gay couples (and in reality there
are more gay men couples than lesbian couples), then this difference is still
7% (or greater). So 7% of women are living with a partner who is not a man nor
a woman?

Not sure I follow this research.

~~~
niuzeta
I would hazard to guess that a couple that consists of younger woman to older
man(that is older than 34, which the research seems to cut off) is more common
than the otherwise.

~~~
momchil
good call

------
Grishnakh
I'm not sure what to say about this other than it doesn't bode well. I really
wonder what American society will look like in 50 years at this rate. People
living with their parents until their 30s, a sky-high divorce rate, high
rents, massive student loan debts, these are not signs of a healthy society,
and as someone else pointed out, it isn't good for the birthrate either. We
better get to work on extending lifespans to mitigate this I guess.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
Well at this stage in the game, it seems like everyone right now who owns a
house is someone who owned a house 30 years ago, i.e. the only way anyone from
my generation gets a house is to inherit it from my parents when they pass on.
Fortunately, my parents fully intend to do that.

There's a rise, however, in the number of seniors who reverse-mortgage their
house and sign away the title to it in exchange for a monthly income until
they die. If that continues, I imagine the banks and private companies will
own all houses in about 50 years, because the previous generation decided to
further screw their offspring in the name of having a slightly cushier final
days.

~~~
sbuttgereit
Screw their offspring? By what law of nature did the property and wealth of a
person's parents become an entitlement to said person? How did it come to pass
that parents are sacrificial lambs to their children? What, if any,
responsibility does a child have to go and make their own lives and happiness
in your view?

If parents decided to reverse-mortgage, sell, or otherwise not bequeath their
hard earned property to their children they are acting completely within their
moral rights. It doesn't matter if the parents hold on so they can continue to
buy food or so they can cruise the world: it's their stuff. The child is not
"screwed" out of anything because their parent's property was never rightfully
the child's in the first place. If the parents decide to be generous and give
their kids the house, car, bank accounts, etc.... lucky kid.

The only case when this above is not true is when the child is not yet an
adult or was born with defects which impair proper functioning as an adult.

~~~
morgante
> Screw their offspring?

I agree that inheritance shouldn't be a natural right. I don't really expect
to receive anything from my parents.

However, things like rampant anti-development attitudes are an untenable
example of screwing their offspring. The older generation already owns houses,
so they love opposing any new development without regard for the fact that
it's making home ownership impossible for all but the wealthiest or luckiest
of my generation.

~~~
dragonwriter
> so they love opposing any new development without regard for the fact that
> it's making home ownership impossible for all but the wealthiest or luckiest
> of my generation.

I doubt very much that the effect it has on price of existing real estate and
how it limits the market is something that the decision to oppose growth is
made "withour regard for".

~~~
morgante
Oh, you're right that they absolutely consider the gains to their own wealth
which can come from such policies.

The cognitive dissonance is when they then turn around and wonder why kids
these days (including their own) can't afford to live on their own.

------
jgalt212
This happens because the Fed is content to expand the money supply by directly
giving money to Ray Dalio instead of Ray Smith.

I just don't get how the central banks think they can spur inflation with
prolonged periods of 0 or negative interest rates. Have you seen what's in the
CPI basket? It ain't stuff HF managers are gonna buy more of if they make
$50MM instead of $10MM a year.

------
arca_vorago
This is simply the result of class-warfare, and the rich are winning. Nobody
wants to hear it though. Every time I rail against the supranational
oligarchical bankers on hn I get downvoted into oblivion, and almost always
without any response or discussion.

My estimation is that the oligarchs have already exploited the third world as
much as they can, and now the only place left to exploit is to turn inwards an
cannibalize their own populace. This is primarily happening in the banking
center countries, Germany, USA, and the UK.

Personally, I have been expecting a crash that is used to push a globalist
currency move, my guess with cybercrime as the scapegoat.

Globalism is the enemy. I am so tired of hearing about how globalism is just
here to stay and Americans are just going to have to get used to a lower
standard of living. It's just a talking point for collectivists who want to
push the global government model, but I think that a return to protectionism
is what is called for. Tax imports, subsidize exports, lower or abolish income
taxes, reduce corporate tax rate but make less loopholes so they actually have
to pay something. Do not misconstrue protectionism for isolationism, which is
a common but false retort.

Inflation is much higher than measured, because they have figured out how to
manipulate the numbers. The same with wages... and unemployment,.. and all the
other things we supposedly use to measure the macro-economy.

We need to stop speaking of the branches of the evil and get to the root, and
I am convinced that the central banks are the root that is rotting this
country. The fiat, fractional reserve system is farcicle enough, but
decoupling it from gold and turning it into the petrodollar has forced us into
realpolitik geostrategic moves that are going to do nothing but bite us in the
ass.

Andrew Jackson may have been a son of bitch, but he was right in how he
attacked the banks.

"It is maintained by some that the bank is a means of executing the
constitutional power “to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” Congress
have established a mint to coin money and passed laws to regulate the value
thereof. The money so coined, with its value so regulated, and such foreign
coins as Congress may adopt are the only currency known to the Constitution.
But if they have other power to regulate the currency, it was conferred to be
exercised by themselves, and not to be transferred to a corporation. If the
bank be established for that purpose, with a charter unalterable without its
consent, Congress have parted with their power for a term of years, during
which the Constitution is a dead letter. It is neither necessary nor proper to
transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore
unconstitutional."

[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ajveto01.asp)

In other words, congress should abolish the sneakily passed Aldrich bill...
_cough_ Federal Reserve Bill, and reclaim it's constitutional authority to
regulate money. (Please note, I do understand that too drastic a change away
from a fiat fractional reserve system would cause too much instability, which
is why I think at first the structure should be maintained, but instead of an
unaccountable board of governors and open market committee, it would be
congress. The real danger is that congress is bought and paid for, so we need
a simultaneous movement to kick out all the incumbents.)

~~~
dewyatt
I do agree with some points you make.

Some relevant documentaries for anyone interested:

[http://www.informativevine.com/2016/04/the-
untouchables-2013...](http://www.informativevine.com/2016/04/the-
untouchables-2013.html)

[https://archive.org/details/cpb20120505a](https://archive.org/details/cpb20120505a)

[http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/were_not_broke](http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/were_not_broke)

[http://www.pbs.org/video/1302794657/](http://www.pbs.org/video/1302794657/)

------
triangleman
Title needs to be updated: "... for the first time since 1880"

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)

------
Chos89
I wonder how much it's connected with risk aversion and if it does, does it
have any correlation with future economic growth?

------
_xzu
United States seems to be following Italy's way. As US is much bigger
transition takes more time and tolerances for inequalities are higher but
trend is obvious.

In case of doubt check if these are growing: Regional inequality, Wealth
inequality, Bureaucracy, Tax system complexity, Corruption, Importance of
social networks in business, Education inequality, Youth unemployment, Living
with parents longer

You could continue the list forever...

------
shams93
Entering the post capitalist era where there is "no money" for anything not
even continuing the species.

------
erbo
I'll echo what Bill Quick said[0]:

"Yep. Just the sort of thing you'd expect to see from a healthy, booming Obama
economy. But #NeverTrump. Because we need _more_ great news like this."

[0]
[http://www.dailypundit.com/?p=122315](http://www.dailypundit.com/?p=122315)

~~~
dragonwriter
Did I miss the point where Trump offered something that looks like a vaguely
plausible solution to the problem that in recent periods of aggregate growth,
that growth has largely been captured at the top end of the income
distribution?

~~~
clevernickname
He has promised to bring manufacturing jobs back by ending "free trade" (i.e.
imposing tariffs on the countries that have been imposing tariffs on our
exports for decades) and punishing American manufacturers that move factories
abroad, significantly lowering taxes for lower income brackets (including _no_
taxes for the nearly 50% of the population in his lowest bracket), and
encouraging domestic investment by reducing corporate tax rates to extremely
competitive rates while imposing a repatriation fee on offshore corporate
accounts and ending the tax exemption on corporate income earned abroad. The
"automation is going to put 99.9% of humans out of a job" dystopian futurist
crowd may see this as punting the ball down the field, but I'd much rather
pump some wealth back into our lower classes today and wait until everyone
else is contemplating post-scarcity economics, than commit economic suicide
while China snickers.

