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Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

wsj.com

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Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#101

Post by ixacto »

ryandrake wrote: post #72
ap22213 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was surprising: "Among Gen Xers who have exceeded their parents’ income, those with college degrees are less likely to surpass their parents’ wealth, mostly due to student loan debt."

Gen X here, just turned 40. If you compare how I'm doing with how my parents (who were solidly middle class) were doing, it's not even close. At 40, they had multiple homes, were secure in their savings and retirement through generous pensions, and practically debt free. This was on school teachers' salaries! Me? Student loan debt set me back years, crippling housing costs, and a crappy 401(k) that is probably worth…

Student loans are stupid unless taken for CS or Medicine. Otherwise the military or community college is just fine. Don't follow your passion unless you have a trustfund with >1mm and can pay for college.

It's not that hard, you put 23k/yr total in the roth IRA & Roth 401k in VFIAX. I do not work in the tech industry anymore and am still doing this, just stop eating out, live cheap.

Compound this over 40-45 years and you and I are multimillionares.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#102

Post by Fraterkes »

danm07 wrote: post #6

I think one of the other reasons is that parents this day and age are more liberal minded than previous generations. I remember talking to my mom and dad about this. When they left the nest, their parents held very strict conservative view, and were often very opinionated in how their sons and daughters should conduct their lives. Nowadays there's not much to rebel against, especially among the educated class.

This seems like a pretty big deal, parents and kids listening to a lot of the same music, watching the same kind of television/series. Its interesting, many parents actually expect their kids to rebel nowadays, because they themselves did, but this expectation is of course counter to the whole idea of rebelling.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#104

Post by r00fus »

notyourwork wrote: post #3

Cost of tuition continually grows, most graduates are not falling into extremely lucrative salaries and average salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This is far from surprising but is very concerning. Another avenue to pursue this discussion from is the % of income allocated to retirement savings. I have a sneaky suspicious most of my peers are saving less for retirement than the same demographic 10, 20, 30 ye…

> What happens in a few decades when all these adults who lived with their parents and hardly saved for retirement due to lower salaries and student loans are too old to work?

Simple - they die early... barring a massive electoral shift in governance priorities.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#105

Post by jiaweihli »

astronautjones wrote: post #93
jquery wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is work to do, though. Doctors, lawyers, engineering, etc. Lots of work for skilled labor. You can't just "turn on more machines" to placate unemployed unskilled labor.

What if the majority of people can't afford doctors or lawyers?

Then many of the doctors/lawyers burdened with extreme student debt and unable to find work will put pressure on the insurance companies and ultimately charge lower prices. That's likely decades out though.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#106

Post by beachstartup »

_RPM wrote: post #50
closeparen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your parents are willing to let you live with them, why not just save the cost of exiting your lease (mine is 1 month's rent) and U-Hauling your stuff back home? Or would you not be able to go back once you left?

My parents tell me I can stay at home forever. I'm not sure about this type of contract. Is it common to have a clause that allows you to "exit the lease"? If so, how would I go forward with asking the people about this without seeming high risk?

> If so, how would I go forward with asking the people about this without seeming high risk?

to a business owner/landlord, asking how much it costs to exit the lease does not mark you as high risk. it just means you know what you're talking about, and they are free to set that value to whatever they want in the contract.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#107

Post by lonesword »

23 year old Indian developer here. The concept of 'moving out' of your parents home is baffling for most of us. I now live in a different city and I share a decent apartment with friends. I can afford to live alone in the apartment I now live in - the rent is 30% of my monthly income and the apartment is 15 minutes away from where I work - but living alone would be just awful. So I'm now paying 11% of my income for rent(electricity, water and a maid included) because I stay with friends. Eventually, most of us would want to move back to our hometowns if we can get a job with similar pay - and live with our parents. Not because it would be cheaper and mom would cook yummy food - but it is just the way it is. In our society, NOT living with your parents when you can is frowned upon. "These are people who raised you and know you well and care for you, why would you want to move out?" is how the society thinks. Also, in a way it is nice. You are NEVER alone. You ALWAYS have people waiting for you when you come back from work. 'Being alone' is seldom a reason for a depressed Indian - the family is always there.

However, compared to the west, we have little to no privacy. We are raised to not expect much privacy in the first place so we don't really miss it. Kids do NOT get a room of their own - never ever - they bunk with siblings. I was around 15 when I got a room of my 'own'. There's no pressure to move out once you grow up - parents would do their best to KEEP you home in fact. I would not have had to 'move out' if my college was not 200 km away. There's one big trade off with the whole set up though - no sex till you get married ;)

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#108

Post by icebraining »

parennoob wrote: post #35
hkmurakami wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that in (at least some regions of) Spain, it's perfectly common and acceptable to continue living with their parents well into adulthood. I remember reading that José María Olazábal (one of the best professional golfers in the 90's, with millions of dollars in earnings) was still living with his parents into his early 40's (though to be fair, he was traveling for half the year on tour). I often think that…

In India this is pretty common as well. It makes meals etc. much easier, provides instant babysitters (the grandparents), and so makes it more flexible for a husband/wife pair to work and still have some free time in the evening. Privacy of course suffers, but then again I with multiple kids like a lot of US households have, there isn't that much privacy anyway. -------------------------------------------------------…

I think it's any commercial entity, right?

Clearly not. Any money you save by staying at your parent's home will be spent in other commercial entities. Even people who save eventually spend it. Conversely, all that cash going to landlords, grocers, insurance, etc is not being spent on something else.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#109

Post by gamegoblin »

flukus wrote: post #80
ryandrake wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry. I commute 4 hours a day. You get used to it. You have to live where you can afford, man.

At 4 hours a day it's time to look at what else you can cut, like house/apartment size.

I feel like it's maybe doable if you use that 4 hours for your "entertainment" time-budget for the day. Listen to audiobooks or podcasts. Then don't watch TV or Netflix or whatever when you actually are home.

That said, this is purely speculation. I have a 10 minute commute by subway+walking.

Re: Percentage of Young Americans Living with Parents Rises to 75-Year High

#110

Post by pvelagal »

parennoob wrote: post #35
hkmurakami wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that in (at least some regions of) Spain, it's perfectly common and acceptable to continue living with their parents well into adulthood. I remember reading that José María Olazábal (one of the best professional golfers in the 90's, with millions of dollars in earnings) was still living with his parents into his early 40's (though to be fair, he was traveling for half the year on tour). I often think that…

In India this is pretty common as well. It makes meals etc. much easier, provides instant babysitters (the grandparents), and so makes it more flexible for a husband/wife pair to work and still have some free time in the evening. Privacy of course suffers, but then again I with multiple kids like a lot of US households have, there isn't that much privacy anyway. -------------------------------------------------------…

In India, it is considered rather disrespectful to leave parents house once a person starts working. This is because, traditionally kids are supposed to take care of parents during their old age.
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