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42% of adults rely on their parents for financial support

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

#121

I think the word "rely" is doing some heavy lifting here. Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.

Yet, with 37% of people being only a $400 surprise cost away from financial destitution, you might be completely wrong. https://www.investopedia.com/here-s-how-many-americans-can-t...

That's not what your linked article says.

37% of survey respondants say they would need to use a credit card to cover a $400 expense. They wouldn't be destitute, they just don't immediately have the cash.

It also cites another study that put the number much lower, at 8%.

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

#122
post #79

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.

I can’t understand morally or financially how can parents charge anything of their children. Not judging it, just honestly can’t understand it. Isn’t it the parents’ responsibility to build the foundation for their children and keep building it until it’s there? I am viewing it from a moral angle where it’s the parents’ selfish choice to have a child so they must take full responsibility until a child is or feels tha…

I think this is driven by both culture and the grade of economic development of the country you live in. In my home country of Italy, it would be considered kinda crazy to charge your kids rent. There are very practical reasons behind it: high youth unemployment, low salaries when you're just starting your career. Rental apartments are also really expensive in big cities and you just can't afford one without getting a roommate (or a partner with a job). So people end up staying at home longer to save money for a down payment, and the parents are totally fine with it.

I live in the US now, and here, where it is (used to be?) easy to land a well-paying job fresh out of school, it is considered quite common to charge your children rent if they decide to stay at home. My feeling is that staying at home in the USA carries quite some stigma for both the kid and their parents. American culture puts a lot of value in self-reliance and financial independence, and the general idea is that you failed as a parent if your kids aren't able to afford their own place.

(I also have a feeling all of the above is changing dramatically, given the current cost of living crisis in America.)

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

#123
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…

I love mental rule of thumbs / heuristics that we can install into our brain to avoid getting caught up in cognitive biases or other mistakes.

An easy one that I would expect most HN readers probably do already is: When shopping, always round up to the nearest dollar before even mentally storing it or operating on it. The usual cognitive bias is that many people end up storing the listed price of $4.96 in a lossy manner, as $4.xx, and end up thinking of it as $4 when in reality they could be skipping straight to keeping it as $5 in their head.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out. I think there's some important things like this that should be considered. In the late 90's early aughts, I didn't need a laptop, smartphone and 24/7 internet access with 1GB download speeds or half the technological stuff kids need these days to be a contributing member of society. Now those are all standa…

> $350/month [ 2000 ] > $1500/month [ 2026 ] CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692. So if it really costs $1500 to cover the things you've mentioned (noticeabley absent: student loans, health insurance, car payments) then either our society is deeply fucked or your list has changed or your estimates are wrong or your memory is wrong or all of the above.

The last time I can remember a reasonably low rent payment, I was paying $300 a month in the year 2000 in Fullerton, CA. That was sharing a two-bedroom apartment between four guys, two of whom lived in the kitchen and living room and paid slightly less, one of whom was a speed addict and eventually got us kicked out and our lease terminated, which left me homeless briefly living in my car. No car payment because I'd bought it in high school for $260 at a sheriff's auction, but roughly $200 or in insurance plus gas money, mostly because commuting anywhere near LA/Orange county uses a lot of fuel. I was still on my parent's health insurance because you could do that until 25 as long as you were in school, and I wasn't paying back student loans because again, still in school. I was also 6'2" and regularly didn't crack 140 lbs because I was eating bulk oatmeal dry. I don't remember the cost of the shared phone bill, but I do remember it was under my name and that speed freak never paid his share, the bill eventually went to collections, and wrecked my credit for several years, which didn't really matter ultimately because I wasn't borrowing any money back then anyway other than the student loans.

I don't know a whole lot of 20 year-olds but certainly hear on the Internet all the time how hard it is for them. I'm extremely skeptical anyone living quite as shittily as I was 26 years ago is really paying 4.5 times as much for the privilege. My 24 year-old niece pays a lot more in rent than I did, but she also lives alone a mile from the beach in San Diego. In a shack, but it's still a hell of a lot nicer than anything I had.

In any case, I got a few bucks here and there from my parents, but they didn't have much when I was young and ultimately helped out my younger sisters a lot more. Cost of teenage parents, I guess. I was the test run. I still turned out fine and they've mostly relied on me in the past 15 years, which seems oddly missing from this survey. If we're concerned about adults not being self-sufficient, surely relying on your kids or siblings or anyone else at all is just as bad as relying on your parents.

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

#125
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…

Related - any time a study is based on gathering the opinions of a random subset of the population, I also instantly dismiss it. The average person is a moron. I don't care about random people's subjective opinions, I only care about objective data. People polled in the 16th century would have said the sun orbits the earth; that doesn't make it true.

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

#126
post #88
post #80

Downward mobility is almost entirely caused by housing costs, which are a self-inflicted problem. We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing. I live in an expensive area and I'm always shocked by how many of my friends who cannot afford to buy a home (or even a condo) are NIMBYs. These are people in their 20s through 40s who have been earning since college, can't afford to buy, yet get annoyed…

> We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing. If actual number of houses was the problem, house prices would not be increasing in areas of population decline. It's existing houses being repriced upward by speculation that makes them unaffordable.

After thirty years of house prices rising astronomically, you can't appeal to "speculation" any more. People are speculating because the underlying scarcity makes prices sure to rise.

I think if you look closely at "population down, house prices up" you will find normal supply-and-demand stories like "population down, houses down even more" or "population down (downtown), prices up (suburbs)".

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

#127
post #98
post #80

Downward mobility is almost entirely caused by housing costs, which are a self-inflicted problem. We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing. I live in an expensive area and I'm always shocked by how many of my friends who cannot afford to buy a home (or even a condo) are NIMBYs. These are people in their 20s through 40s who have been earning since college, can't afford to buy, yet get annoyed…

In Germany we even import people by the millions to keep rents high, among other things, and more than half of them get their housing paid for by taxpayers money.

About half of social housing in London is headed by people born outside of the country. Social housing is quite rare in the UK now after 1980s mass privatization started. It is provided at a steep rental discount and if you qualify for it you can keep it for life. Or purchase it at a steep discount.

Quite bizarre, but difficult to talk about, because it plays in to the wrong side of ongoing culture wars for some people.

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/fact-check-foreign-born-p...

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

#128
post #53

> 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 wa…

Let me suggest the problem: CPI inflation suggests a rough doubling of basic living costs. How many jobs can you point to that are paying 2x in 2026 what they were paying in 2000? There are some . But the data seems to suggest that the majority do not.

This posted while I was still in the middle of my other rant, but when I was doing the four guys in one apartment thing putting myself through community college, my job was overnight janitor at Knott's Berry Farm and paid $6.50 an hour. Minimum wage in California is now $16.90, so that at least is more than double.

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

#129
post #88
post #80

Downward mobility is almost entirely caused by housing costs, which are a self-inflicted problem. We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing. I live in an expensive area and I'm always shocked by how many of my friends who cannot afford to buy a home (or even a condo) are NIMBYs. These are people in their 20s through 40s who have been earning since college, can't afford to buy, yet get annoyed…

> We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing. If actual number of houses was the problem, house prices would not be increasing in areas of population decline. It's existing houses being repriced upward by speculation that makes them unaffordable.

There's no question that underbuilding is the largest factor here. You can look at construction vs. population over time (it's well below historical standards). Or available home vacancy rates. Or notice that the number of households is increasing faster than the number of homes. Or look at the various models, which show a 2 million-4 million shortfall in homes.

That aside, housing prices are reasonable in much of the country. Where population is stagnant or declining, they are generally reasonable.

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

#130
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my house the >8 years old the kids start paying rent. They get paid for normal house work (minimum wage). Rent is ~$300/month. I pay the kid minimum wage for chores because that is work and work should be rewarded. They pay me rent. That rent and other expenses are ~80% of their pay. Some must go to savings and "taxes". They have to keep books as well. The rest is theirs. I know other fathers that charge their adu…

I understand that such a game of life might be beneficial for a child. But I would like to understand the reasoning to do that with an adult. > I know other fathers that charge their adult children rent, keep the money, and then gift it to them at the wedding or to help them buy a house. This looks like a game which should have ended by the time a child is an adult. I am raising a very young child so I am very concer…

I suspect it depends on the kid. If they are naturally frugal and saving for things (and the household doesn't need the money), then why bother.

If they aren't frugal, and are otherwise suffering from lifestyle creep, then not charging them might be an injustice and setting them up for false expectations/never leaving home.

FYI, I was in the first group because my first job had pay cuts within 2 weeks, and then I discovered I basically spent minimal time at home anyway, so why pay more for it. Let me buy when I wanted to move out.

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