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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

#101
post #27

Might be an unpopular opinion, especially in North America, but I think families living together is a great thing. I have a wife and child, and we all live with my parents in a largish 6-bedroom house. They are retired and I support them financially. While they bought this house before I entered the workforce, I now pay the mortgage on this house. A few years ago we did a total rebuild of the house, and it's now a gr…

[deleted]

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#102

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

Florida CoL is driven by out-of-staters (specifically New England snow birds and retirees). earned money out of state and then buy vacation properties or primary residences.

No-income tax attracts people living on a fixed income (gained by being employed out of state via Social Security, Pensions, and traditional retirement accounts).

Florida income cannot compete with NYC income, even if there is no income tax.

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#103

It sounds like Japan since the 90s, but without broad societal acceptance

I really hope hikikomori doesn't become normal

It’s already here.

https://www.npr.org/2014/08/11/338042751/why-are-men-leaving...

https://cis.org/Report/WorkingAge-Not-Working

https://nypost.com/2022/11/02/disturbing-rise-of-the-nilfs-m...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2023/12/24/loneli...

https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/loneliness-in-america

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#104
post #27

Might be an unpopular opinion, especially in North America, but I think families living together is a great thing. I have a wife and child, and we all live with my parents in a largish 6-bedroom house. They are retired and I support them financially. While they bought this house before I entered the workforce, I now pay the mortgage on this house. A few years ago we did a total rebuild of the house, and it's now a gr…

It's not a bad thing necessarily but it seldom works well practice. Dating as an adult living with your parents is super awkward. How many women want to spend the night at some guy's house and run into his parents in the hallway the next morning? Ick.

Ambitious, upwardly mobile people often have to move for job opportunities. Meanwhile their parents are often not yet retired and are tied to a different location by their own careers.

The interpersonal dynamics can be really toxic. Often the older generation has particular outdated ideas about household management, religion, cooking, and child rearing. Clear boundaries have to be set and respected or else there is constant conflict and resentment.

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#105

Earlier 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

> 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: th…

>>Give people enough resources and they'll have more kids.

Not sure I buy that - I know plenty of couples, each of them with good 6 figure salaries, who have no interest in having kids, ever - if they had 7 figure salaries, I don't think it would change their mind one bit.

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a local or a national problem? Homes are a lot more affordable outside of the inflated West Coast metros.

That's true, but jobs outside of metro areas are nearly non-existent, or pay peanuts. Moving out of a metro area typically puts you in, maybe, a bigger home, but the pay is drastically lower. Food costs, internet, phone, vehicle, etc all cost nearly the same (if not more expensive), so you're probably doing even worse moving out of a metro area.

Home ownership rates and price to income ratios are doing well in many states.

https://www.fatherly.com/news/map-cheapest-state-buy-house

https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/homeownership-rate-...

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

couples with two generous 6 figures salaries are not generally the people worried about unexpected huge medical expenses - they have good jobs, and good insurance.

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#108

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.

Which county?

Take your pick. Rents from Monroe to Alachua are sharply higher (from 2019) (>2x higher for us). I've no reason to suspect different for Panhandle counties but they don't make the news often. No counties have been spared from home & auto insurance increases (+80% for us).

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#109
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems strange for a state with no income tax, that would happen

Florida CoL is driven by out-of-staters (specifically New England snow birds and retirees). earned money out of state and then buy vacation properties or primary residences. No-income tax attracts people living on a fixed income (gained by being employed out of state via Social Security, Pensions, and traditional retirement accounts). Florida income cannot compete with NYC income, even if there is no income tax.

In short we're saying:

Market forces responded to lower taxes by sharply increasing the cost of living.

Re: Nearly half of Americans age 18 to 29 are living with their parents

#110

I think learned helplessness is a real problem. We have friends in their late 30's and early 40's who still live with multiple roommates. They're "well educated" but can't seem to hold a job, or stay in a relationship, or pay for anything. They've got subscriptions ticking away that they didn't remember they had, and then they're shocked to learn about an overdraft fee or a big credit card bill. One of them recently…

It is unpopular to say, but I've observed the same thing many times before. Not that an attitude change would solve the world's problems, but some people have no sense of intentionality in their lives.

same here - some people just have a 'peasant mentality' mindset that will cause them to make bad decisions/self-sabotage themselves their entire life because they identify themselves as someone that struggles to survive, even though they wouldn't have to if they just got with the program even a little bit.
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