
Young Workers in Free Fall: 1/3 Under 35 Live with Parents - edw519
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142386/young_workers_in_free_fall%3A_1_3_under_35_live_with_parents/
======
tc
It's ironic that this report was put out by the AFL-CIO, an organization who
has done as much as anyone to preclude the movement of younger workers into
the workforce (via union seniority policies, minimum wage laws, etc.).

~~~
hristov
Let's think logically about this for a second. If the presence of minimum wage
laws prevents a young person from moving out, then a young person should be
able to move out on a salary less than the present day minimum wage.

Is that true? Not in my hood.

~~~
tc
You're not going back far enough.

The problem with minimum wage laws is that they precludes marginal young
workers from getting job experience that would help them build the skills and
references needed to get better jobs. There is plenty of research showing that
every time the minimum wage goes up, teenage unemployment goes up
disproportionately.

~~~
hristov
Riiight. There is always an explanation. So the theory is someone is going to
hire a teenager for less than minimum wage to begin with but then will give
them wonderful opportunities later on. Or better yet, someone working for less
than min wage will use that on their resume to great effect.

It would be great if we all lived in the world of conservative economists.

~~~
tc
You may take it for granted, but a major trait that employers look for is
simple _employability_ : someone that can show up on time, not cause problems,
not throw attitude, and not steal from the company. I'll take someone who
spent three summers lifeguarding for the same company over someone with no
work experience any day.

Pretend that starting a company wasn't an option for you. I guarantee there is
some minimum wage level that would have knocked out the bottom rung in your
career ladder.

~~~
warfangle
TBH, my career ladder didn't start until I was offered a part-time credit+pay
position by my programming teacher in year 2 of community college.

Before that, I was making 126% minimum wage at my first job (movie theater).
So, I suppose if minimum wage had been higher I wouldn't have wasted three
years of my life cleaning up used condoms and dirty diapers from the floor of
a theater.

But it probably wouldn't have kept me from being offered the (mostly credit)
3-month development project at the school I was going to. And arguably, that
set up my career more than anything.

------
jeremymims
I know of many people who live at home with their parents out of necessity (I
did for a little while after college). I also know people who live at home
with their parents with the intention of saving up money to put a down payment
on a house (a few have done that). But I also know some people who have spent
themselves into debt even while working and living at home, guaranteeing that
they won't be leaving any time soon.

I don't think it's possible right now for the average person to do what our
parents or grandparents typically did (get married, buy a house, have 2.5
kids, and send them to college) at as early an age as they did.

All of these life events have become insanely expensive by our parents'
standards:

Marriage: avg. wedding cost in the US is now about 30k, avg. ring is about 5k.
(I'm not saying this makes sense, I'm just saying this is where money is
allocated.)

House: avg. housing costs are still up over historical norms and anyone who
was able to buy their first house in the last few years is probably upside
down on payments.

Kids: More expensive than they used to be. All signs point to dramatically
increased costs across the board: health insurance, clothing, education,
activities, and food.

College: College prices have bubbled as much as housing and the cost of a
degree has nearly doubled in 15 years. By the time your kids take the plunge,
it may have doubled again.

And this is on top of individuals carrying higher levels of debt from all of
these events later into their lives even while real world wages have
stagnated.

All indications point to jobs trickling back into the economy more slowly than
they left. My only hope is that a good portion of those who are stuck at home
are working on ways to extricate themselves (startups, consulting,
freelancing, etc.).

~~~
cookiecaper
Expense is just an excuse to avoid commitment in most cases.

You think your parents started out with 2 cars, a nice house, and college
funds all wrapped up and ready to go? I know mine didn't. In most cases, those
people have worked hard for years to earn that kind of lifestyle. A lot of the
coming generations are accustomed to it and expect it, without realizing all
of the time and work their parents invested to earn that.

My parents moved into a small apartment when they got married. They worked to
save up for a down payment on a home. They had bought one by the time I was
born (4 years after their marriage), and they continued to save to provide all
of the luxuries that my siblings and I enjoyed as we grew up.

But they didn't use it as an excuse to put off the family.

My wife and I shared an apartment with another couple when we first got
married. It sucked, but we did what we had to do, and we were happier to be
together than to put it off and stay at our parents' houses alone just because
we couldn't afford a spacious living condition.

You don't have to spend 30k on a wedding. My wife and I got married for less
than $200, and our rings were under $50.

You don't have to have your own house. Apartments work just as well, and have
less general expense.

You don't have to send your kids to college. They can work to get there --
there are plenty of options for that, and they may not even have to go to
college. I dropped out of high school and my last full-time job paid me a
salary of $65,000; not bad for a 21-year-old, imo.

Plenty of people get by with their kids on $10-$15/hr or less. It's possible,
you just can't be demanding and you can't nourish entitlement. Accept that you
won't be able to buy that $300,000 house right away and move on with your
life. Don't put off love for convenience; that trade will rob you blind.

~~~
pyre
> _You think your parents started out with 2 cars, a nice house, and college
> funds all wrapped up and ready to go? I know mine didn't. In most cases,
> those people have worked hard for years to earn that kind of lifestyle. A
> lot of the coming generations are accustomed to it and expect it, without
> realizing all of the time and work their parents invested to earn that._

It doesn't help if the parents don't really do a good job of instilling in
their kids what they have gone through in their life. If all they tell their
kids about their life are a few choice bits here and there, then it's little
wonder that their kids don't have a clue that their parents were sometimes in
dire straits for cash or food before working their way up to where they are
today.

> _You don't have to spend 30k on a wedding. My wife and I got married for
> less than $200, and our rings were under $50._

My wife and I were able to do ~$5k for a wedding for ~50 people, which
included a banquet at a nice Chinese restaurant (There was so much food that
people were taking food home, they added an additional course to the meal at
no charge, and let us bring our own alcohol even though we technically needed
to get some expensive license to do so). And ~$3k of it was just for the
banquet.

But I've known people that go overboard with weddings. One wedding we were
invited to was in the Caribbean on a cruise. If we wanted to attend we would
have had to purchase our own way on a 7-day cruise. (Apparently the service
was going to be on some small island in the middle of the cruise) I can't
imagine how much that must have cost. My wife also had a co-worker whose
fiance broke up with him because they weren't going to be able to immediately
move into a nice house/picket fence/etc when they were married because he
ended up losing his job. People put too much relevance on money and
possessions.

------
epe
"...34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial
reasons"

I'd like to see "workers under 35" defined a bit more precisely. Is it
literally "anyone under the age of 35 who holds a job", which would include
teenagers working at McDonald's and (quite unsurprisingly) living with their
parents?

~~~
maximilian
This is exactly what I was thinking. 23-30 would be a much more appropriate
percentage. Many students would even still call their parent's house "home"
until they graduate and move on to "real" jobs.

------
cookiecaper
I am considering moving back in with my parents right now, but it'll be a two
or three month transitory stay until we can establish a regular cashflow (I
quit my job recently and am starting my own business ... it's gaining clients,
but they take a while to pay, and my wife is applying for part-time jobs). I
don't see a problem with this. I don't think there's necessarily an issue with
living with your parents after 18 or 21 or whatever (I'm 21).

I think it's kind of a wasteful philosophy to assume that everyone should have
their own independent piece of land. If both parties are content to stay under
the same roof, what's the problem?

I do think that we should think about other ways to compel maturity, though.
For at least the last twenty years, college has been a means of extending
adolescence. We need to address the problems there that teach kids to fear
love and commitment (a symptom of the high divorce rate and perverted concepts
on the family).

The marriage age needs to come back down to ~21-25, kids in college shouldn't
be given a pass to party or live recklessly. People do what's expected of
them.

~~~
simanyay
"I think it's kind of a wasteful philosophy to assume that everyone should
have their own independent piece of land. If both parties are content to stay
under the same roof, what's the problem?"

I think that for the majority, living with parents when you are adult is a
huge psychological burden. Not only the society that does not approve such
lifestyle, but also the fact that an adult person must have their own personal
area to which their parents do not belong (sexual life is one example).

~~~
pyre
I think it depends on the parents. I know people that have parents that get
drunk with them/smoke weed with them. On the other hand, there are parents
that feel the need to treat their 30-year old children like 3-year-olds and
second-guess every move that they make; ready to talk down at them with
'advice.'

If your parents are going to treat you like a child and/or you don't have an
open enough relationship with them to feel comfortable bring home a girlfriend
/ having sex with your wife, then there will be inevitable conflicts.

~~~
simanyay
I agree that it depends, however I don't think that it is that easy. Even if
you have a good, open relationship with your parents what about your
wife/girlfriend or friends? Will they be comfortable to get drunk at your
place with your mom around or to have sex with you when your mom is sleeping
in the next room?

------
modoc
I get along great with my family, and love them very much. However I moved out
when I was 16 and have lived on my own since. I have an independent nature and
it's important to me to support myself and provide for myself as much as I'm
able. If I had to, I could and would move home, but if there was an option to
be supporting myself, I'd take it.

------
omouse
You know, that isn't a problem. My dad and my mum lived at home in Europe for
quite a while, while they were finishing degrees and all that. It seems to be
a North American thing to move out when you're not even finished university.

------
johnrob
The U.S. is slowly (and inevitably) becoming Europe, where living with parents
while in your 30s is not abnormal.

~~~
barrkel
That's a pretty broad generalization of a continent with a lot of variation in
cultural patterns, economics of housing markets, structure of workforces, etc.
Here are some numbers, from 1994, but should give an illustration of the
range:

    
    
        Share of those at age 25-29 still living in parent's home, %
                          Men   Women
        France            22.5  10.3 
        Germany           28.8  12.7 
        Great Britain     20.8  10.8 
        Spain             64.8  47.6 
        Greece            62.6  32.1 
        Italy             66.0  44.1
    

Source: <http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/research/nordic/gerdem.pdf> \- it
quotes source as EUROSTAT Data by Fernandez-Cordon 1997, itself quoted by
Lauterbach and Lüscher 1999, p.430:

Lauterbach, Wolfgang and Kurt Lüscher (1999), ’Wer sind die Spätauszieher?
Oder: Herkunftsfamilie, Wohnumfeld und die Gründung eines eigenen Haushalts.
Eine empirische Untersuchung über das Alter bei der Haushaltsgründung’, in
Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft 24 (4), 425-448.

~~~
asdlfj2sd33
Interesting, the countries in the sun belt of Europe: Spain, Greece and Italy
have the highest live at home rates, they also have some pretty pricey real
estate due to demand from Germany, the UK, and other northern Europeans.

~~~
utku_karatas2
I guess it's more likely about the culture and family values rather than the
economic facts when it comes to countries those called to have meditterenean
culture (Spain, Greece, Italy and a bunch more). ie. in Turkey a guy is simply
not expected to move out until marriage.

------
stse
Intresting note from the study: "...young people with college experience are
significantly more likely to have Facebook accounts than non-college
respondents, and significantly less likely to have MySpace accounts. It’s also
more common for young people with college experience to rely on Web-based
media for their news."

~~~
pyre
> _"...young people with college experience are significantly more likely to
> have Facebook accounts than non-college respondents, and significantly less
> likely to have MySpace accounts. It’s also more common for young people with
> college experience to rely on Web-based media for their news."_

Why is that interesting? Most people outside of college were introduced to
social networking through MySpace. Most people inside of college were
introduced to social networking through Facebook (when Facebook started out
you needed to have a .edu email address to register; it was for university
students only). Most people that have college experience probably lived in a
dorm for some length of time, where they had relatively cheap, fast internet
service; therefore they are more likely to be using the internet to take care
of things like getting their news.

I don't think that you really need a study to get this information, though
real-world data never hurts.

~~~
stse
It's interesting because it's, as you said, real-world data. Where I live
facebook wasn't available nor popular during the ".edu only"-era. Here
Internet access is cheap and fast for most people so I would also imagine
college attendees get more of their news from newspapers and other non-based
source then non-college attendees, because of the academic focus at college.

------
mdg
this is true for I, yes

~~~
Readmore
Where do you live?

It's interesting for me to hear this kind of stuff since I live in Tulsa
Oklahoma. Nearly all my friends, single or married, have bought their own
homes in the last couple years. My wife and I rent but only because we would
rather save up to build our own house outside of the city.

I have a feeling that a lot of this 'lost Generation' stuff stems from people
who live on the east and west coasts but that may just be my bias. Anybody
else have an insight?

~~~
pyre
I'm sure that this affects places like Tulsa too. It just happens to a small
extent than places with larger populations and/or your group of friends
selectively excludes people that are likely to be in this sort of situation.

~~~
Readmore
That's probably true, good observation.

------
bumbunnies
It's called being a bunch of spoiled, lazy liberal kids who think they're
entitled to whatever they want. It says the number who cannot afford their
bills rose 14%... Probably bc their bills rose 200% b/c they need (and are
entitled to) the macbook, they need tivo, they need starbucks, they need...
ETC

LAME!

~~~
jeremymims
I think that's a complete overgeneralization. People who are just starting out
didn't cause the current economic crisis or the housing bubble. Neither did
they foot the bill for over-consumption for the last twenty years. Some may
have been raised with the expectation for nicer things, but I don't actually
see how that would be their fault.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
One of my favorite things about HN is how often I read a well-articulated and
reasonable response to a nutjob rant, rather than a response in kind. Kudos
and a vote up to you, sir.

~~~
Novash
Agreed

