I live with my 5 adult sons because here (rural FL) it requires 4 incomes to afford minimal, basic bills - in a debt-free household.
Seems strange for a state with no income tax, that would happen
Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
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Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#82Then you will see 1001 theories about why the population is declining. People in their 30's can't afford a house, let alone raising a family. A whole population inside a certain age group seems completely unable to grasp this basic reasoning.
Sounds good, except that fertility rate correlates inversely with income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility If you gave a population a $10k raise (in a hypothetical world with no inflation) the birth rate would probably DECREASE
This is not totally correct. One reason it appears that fertility is inversely correlated with income is hidden confounding variables. Among comparable populations (within the same country, as a starting point) income is positively related to income.
https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/income-and...
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#83I'm in my mid 30s and have always had a decent job with relatively decent income, but the cost of living has always made it impossible to save enough fast enough to get a down payment on a home. Now I finally have one, but with interest rates it seems like a poor financial decision to buy a home when I can rent the same quality of home for half the price. I feel for kids starting out today, I can't see how they will…
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Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly every east Asian country that has a background with Confucianism. So at least 2 Billion People.
You want us to believe any culture has a contingent of 18-year-olds out-earning their 40-something parents?
This is true if you're born in certain parts of India and then move to a big city for work.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#85I'm in my mid 30s and have always had a decent job with relatively decent income, but the cost of living has always made it impossible to save enough fast enough to get a down payment on a home. Now I finally have one, but with interest rates it seems like a poor financial decision to buy a home when I can rent the same quality of home for half the price. I feel for kids starting out today, I can't see how they will…
Saving for a down payment is largely a fool's game, at least in many areas of the country. Prices tend to rise faster than you can save thus putting you further and further behind.
If you want to own your own home (and not everyone does or should) then a better approach is to take advantage of one of the various low down payment mortgage programs. Focus on credit score and cashflow rather than down payment. This is somewhat risky in that a temporary reduction in income can quickly put you into a foreclosure and bankruptcy situation, but it works out in the end for most consumers.
I understand that from a social policy standpoint it doesn't make sense for governments to encourage rapid residential real estate price inflation or high levels of leverage. But from a personal finance standpoint we have to work with the system as it exists rather than expecting it to change.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds good, except that fertility rate correlates inversely with income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility If you gave a population a $10k raise (in a hypothetical world with no inflation) the birth rate would probably DECREASE
Right, low income causes kids, so what we need are more poors! We don't enact regressive policies because we want money, we only do it because we love you! It couldn't possibly be that the causal arrow points in the other direction, that kids are an economic burden, cause hardship in an already economically strained population, and those who escape do so in part because they choose not to have kids. Nah, couldn't be.
Being economically strained is relative. Middle class people clutch their pearls at the thought of having children before they have completed their master's degree, have their 4 bedroom house in a safe neighborhood with good schools, maxed out retirement accounts, and a membership to Whole Foods. Broke people have a different idea of what necessities are so they have no problem pumping out kids.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#87Then you will see 1001 theories about why the population is declining. People in their 30's can't afford a house, let alone raising a family. A whole population inside a certain age group seems completely unable to grasp this basic reasoning.
Sounds good, except that fertility rate correlates inversely with income. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility If you gave a population a $10k raise (in a hypothetical world with no inflation) the birth rate would probably DECREASE
> Two recent studies in the United States show, that in some circumstances, families whose income has increased will have more children.
There's a massive gulch between "too poor to have ubiquitous access to birth control and healthcare" and "rich enough to provide the upbringing I desire for my child". Most Americans exist in that gulch.
> But something happened to the American family over the last three decades: that downward slope became a U-turn. Women in families in the top half of the income spectrum are having more kids than their similar-earning counterparts did 20 years ago. Women from the very richest households are now having more children than those less-well off.
https://qz.com/1125805/the-reason-the-richest-women-in-the-u...
Give people enough resources and they'll have more kids. But it takes a lot of resources, and an increasing amount year by year, to hit that mark.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want us to believe any culture has a contingent of 18-year-olds out-earning their 40-something parents?
I was not aware the premise of the comment had anything to do with out-earning parents. The responded to comment was >Some cultures expect children to take care of their parents once they hit 18. This might not be financially, but culturally driven. And the answer is, yes, you are expected to take care of parents as soon as you are able to.
That's what social security is for. And not being able to support parents is why we started social security in the first place.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense, but it feels to me like the more educated and higher-income young adults are the ones delaying kids / choosing not to have kids. It feels like lower-income young adults are more likely to start families.
Higher incomes tends to correlate with better long term planning, and better controlled risk taking. Having a higher income also correlates with having grown up in a higher income household, and thus having more expensive ideas of what table-stakes childrearing looks like. So, as some well paid techbro, I probably had a relatively well-off childhood, and my perceived cost of having a kid is going to include A) paying…
And with our medical system, children are like a reverse lottery ticket (to borrow a term I saw elsewhere on HN) - if they're born with a medical issue, they may take millions in care - something I've seen personally happen to coworkers. I've got enough anxiety trying to maintain my own health insurance.
Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
You never actually own a home anyway. The property taxes rise relentlessly every year (the rent you pay the government). Then there's all the code and zoning laws to greatly restrict what you can do with it.
The relentless rise of property tax has to do with the unsustainable municipal financials of low density suburbs. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
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