Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 289 posts

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#51

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

vondur wrote: post #43
snovymgodym wrote: post #14

The figure might be misleading. It might not be. Either way, the idea that the natural and normal state of affairs is that every person can go out into the world and be a perfectly self sufficient but comfortable atomized economic unit without support from their family or society is deeply flawed. This wasn't the norm for most of human history, and it isn't the norm globally today.

Look at the comment above, the sample is from really wealthy parents, not the median income in the US, so I'm sure that skews the data.

No, it mentioned 816 out of more than 4500 respondents had net worth over $1M.

That's quite different to your claim.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#52

Post by exiguus »

The question that was ask in the survey was: How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)

I understand that YC is questioning the results of the survey. The YC community is very privileged; and i bet, if we do the same survey in this community, 20% or less of adults rely on their parents.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#53

Post by cliglot »

> CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692.

Rent alone will probably blow that. I live in a burnt out rust belt shithole city and I’m struggling to understand how rent is this high. I pay a good bit more than $692 to live in a slum just outside the ghetto right now and I have to feel gracious for that. It’s closer to what I paid in a decent middle class neighborhood in Florida. That was only 5-6 years ago.

This is in a city where the best people can say about it is: “well it’s cheaper”.

Hell when I lived in South Carolina from 2017-2019. My apartment there was closer to the stated inflation figure, but this was for a place that regularly flooded the downstairs neighbors and left me for weeks without AC in the peak of summer because of careless management.

Still not as bad as business rents. I’ve seen downtown business close because they’re being made to be $7000 for a shitty 100 year old property surrounded by condemned properties.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#55

Post by dclowd9901 »

nathan_compton wrote: post #15
annjose wrote: post #9

Whenever 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…

Still, it lowers the resolution of the results if you have to throw out a significant portion of the interviews.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#56

Post by alphawhisky »

snovymgodym wrote: post #14

The figure might be misleading. It might not be. Either way, the idea that the natural and normal state of affairs is that every person can go out into the world and be a perfectly self sufficient but comfortable atomized economic unit without support from their family or society is deeply flawed. This wasn't the norm for most of human history, and it isn't the norm globally today.

Slavery and massive wealth disparity was also the norm for most of human history, but just like generational wealth transfer, that doesn't mean it's equitable (or sustainable). Personally, I'm concerned that this will lead to greater wealth transfer from poor to rich and the subsequent dissolution of social norms that hold countries and cultures together. But I don't really care, I have nothing to lose here.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#57

Post by NDlurker »

I lived with my parents until I was 20 and they helped me out until I was 22. My girlfriend's kids are on the same path. Though even with people in their 30s and 40s I think it's common to get help for unexpected big expenses because a lot of people don't have adequate emergency funds.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#58

Post by conductr »

cliglot wrote: post #42

How you define “rely”. I’ve certainly seen trust fund kids who’s success is anchored on “daddy gave me a sweet job at his company” and others who’d be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for the constant money poured into the legal system by their parents.

There’s a huge spectrum. I’m mid 40s and my wife grew up much wealthier than I did. We have done quite well, but I I’m a bit frugal, like to save, despise waste and excess, and therefore don’t like traveling like they do. I like traveling but all the fancy upgraded experiences at every turn is what I refuse to spend money on. But we don’t go without, we “rely” on my in laws to upgrade our travel (or that’s how my wife has structured the relationship with them, they pay for everything and we cover the drinks is basically how it works out). I’m not a huge fan of it but they don’t care and it keeps my wife off my back lol, so whatever. We travel with them a lot but even when we don’t I think my wife uses their card to pay for it. It’s between them is what I say, I don’t want to be a part of it as it feels like we’re taking advantage of them but apparently they’re fine with it. Is this fitting the definition of “rely” because it’s nonessential

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#59

Post by AviationAtom »

ironman1478 wrote: post #50
aianus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? If you don’t touch the principal you can live off the investment returns forever and so can your descendants.

Health care costs at the end of your life can eat everything you've ever saved and more. Cost of maintenance on housing is increasing and property insurance rates + HOA rates are going up. This idea only works under ideal conditions.

I'd be curious if the folks that are advocating for people to provide support to their adults kids also expect those adult kids to keep their parents living with them when elderly. I know assisted living facilities charge exorbitant amounts of money, to the point it's often advised to setup a trust, so the parent's assets are no longer viewed as their assets. These facilities apparently charge based on assets, where if you have none then suddenly the monthly cost to live there equates only to the value of your Social Security Income payments.

Re: 42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

#60

Post by PaulHoule »

My 20-something son is living with us but he does pay (some) rent.

I half expect to have to apologize for this, like when I was growing up people would think you are a loser if you were in this situation. Today people think we are really smart and the people who are paying more rent than they can afford to live alone that are losing.

Post reply on HN