What do you call the situation where your parents depend on your support? I helped my dad with a 6000 Euro out of pocket surgery so he can regain the use of his shoulder. And I'm an average working class Europoor, not a stock broker. And my mom is paying some of the bills for my grandma because she can't afford the bills on her ~300 Euro pension.
42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
21–30 of 289 posts
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#22This article is shilling some courseware for CNBC FYI.
I think that's an ad that appears at the bottom of most of the articles on "cnbc make it" so I'm not the specific article is shilling it per se.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#23Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes: - "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless. - surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey. - how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution? Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Nor…
> (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).
Am I reading this wrong, is this about trust fund kids?
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went to the source[1] referenced by the article and found the exact question. It took about 90 seconds. "How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)" 1: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...
According to that 17% of boomers+ are dependent on their parents. Just looking at boomers, that is around 70 on average. How many people that age even have parents still alive, let alone financially depend on them?
Boomers can be trust fund babies too.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#25Ok, but why?
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com has been linked on HN many times before.
Is it related to that?
Searching the internet, one can read more, such as:
> In August 1971, alongside the "Nixon Shock" that severed the dollar's convertibility to gold, the Nixon administration imposed a 90-day economy-wide freeze on all wages and prices. This was the first time the U.S. enacted wage and price controls outside of wartime. Following the initial 90-day freeze, the Nixon administration implemented a complex, multi-tiered price control system on the petroleum industry that lasted for years.
> In August 1971, Nixon was "floating" the dollar, abandoning the gold standard and "freezing" prices and wages.
This video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EBEapf3OFw asks the below:
> Why did America deliberately destroy its own manufacturing industry?
And starts off,
> It did not happen all at once. Americans watched their own country lose it, brand by brand, factory by factory. Every time, the country was handed the same three reasons...(It looked inevitable. And every one of them was true enough to believe.) Plenty of those factories were still making money the day they were ordered shut. They closed anyway, on the say-so of men who had never worked a shift in their lives and grew richer each time another one went dark....
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#2633% of GenX is still depending on their parents? That's shocking... I'm at the young end of GenX at 49yo. So, a slice of the population that is fast approaching retirement age is still reliant on their septuagenarian or octogenarian parents for money? Wow.
Source: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st... OK, now I'm questioning the whole thing... it also claims 17% of Boomers reliant on their parents. So, we have some substantial number of 62-80 years olds relying on their 90-100 year old parents? Seems unlikely.
Wait until you see the homeownership statistics, or the average age of homebuyers.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#27Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes: - "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless. - surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey. - how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution? Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Nor…
> (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000). Am I reading this wrong, is this about trust fund kids?
Sure seems like it if you are excluding property.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#28So if said kids are relying on their parents for support... how are their kids going to rely on them? The idea behind generational wealth is that there is something left to pass down. If you have nothing to pass down, because both you and your parents spent it all, then you're fully on your own to support yourself. Somewhere along the line the bill always comes due.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#29Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes: - "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless. - surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey. - how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution? Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Nor…
Typically surveys are adjusted for sampling biases before reporting. That appears to be the case here. So there is usually some attempt to account for the biases in the sampled population. The impulse to ask "what population was sampled?" is good but its not always a straight line from there to "these results directly reflect that sampling bias." In fact, from the page you posted: "Data for the general U.S. populatio…
I agree with you - there’s usually some adjustment for sampling bias, and this study says it is matching Census targets. But I had to go three levels down to see that info before I derive any meaning from the number.
My concern is that headlines like “x% of adults do y” get repeated without anyone (sometimes even journalists writing the article) seeing the methodology or nuance behind them. Context matters.
Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support
#3033% of GenX is still depending on their parents? That's shocking... I'm at the young end of GenX at 49yo. So, a slice of the population that is fast approaching retirement age is still reliant on their septuagenarian or octogenarian parents for money? Wow.
Source: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st... OK, now I'm questioning the whole thing... it also claims 17% of Boomers reliant on their parents. So, we have some substantial number of 62-80 years olds relying on their 90-100 year old parents? Seems unlikely.
Maybe you're not familiar with the entire economy? There are a lot of households that depend on retirement checks of the oldest members and households that don't have traditional work but may have family homes, businesses and farms still in the name of the oldest relatives. Different groups would have different results as far as whether they will inherit independence or become destitute if parents die.