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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

#171

Post by icebraining »

madaxe_again wrote: post #161
ryandrake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My father was an employee of a series of banks. Nothing hugely special - earning the equivalent of about £100k today at that point - but the lifestyle they had by my age is astounding. By 34 they owned a huge house in the country, several large holiday homes abroad, three cars, private education for the kids, first class flights (for them - I always flew alone to school, economy), motorbikes, you name it. At the same…

Be careful about generalizing from your own experience. Only 0.4% of Brits own a second house, let several large holiday homes. While there were certainly some years of rapidly increasing consumer welfare, most of their gains were in stuff we take for granted today, not luxuries.

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

#172

Post by pdimitar »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #116
praptak wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The machines have owners. How do you make them give away whatever they produce?

They may have to. If there is no money to buy these things, then they'll be back living at home, too.

Don't be naive. Governments and corporations will just devise laws that you HAVE TO buy these goods. How do you muster the money is, and always will be, your problem.

They'll find a way to make money, don't you worry about that at all. They'll sooner make you owe money by the mere fact you're born than to give up.

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

#173

Post by ihaveahadron »

The youth today suck. Sorry it's true.

This is, partly, a joke.

Explanation: The joke is that I am one of the youth. It's only partly a joke, though, because "the youth" besides me and I guess "a few others", really do suck because they are hao 老 and still livings with their parents -- according to the article.

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

#174

Post by epalmer »

I have two girls, 24 and 18 years old. Both live at home right now. The 24 year old graduated from a selective private liberal arts college in 2015 and is working part time in a library. She does not qualify for health insurance or many other benefits. She does not make enough to live on her own.

She is also in graduate school online for a Master of Library Science (MLS). She wants to be a librarian and you pretty much need an MLS to become a librarian. Her part time income mostly goes just to pay for graduate school.

Her sister graduated high school 2016 and is taking a gap year as an AmeriCorp Vista employee working with center city schools on after school STEM programs from FIRST Robotics. She will go to college fall 2017 at Olin College of Engineering.

We suspect that the oldest will live with us for many years and her mom and I are fine with that. Expensive liberal arts degrees don't often pay well. I think that situation is going to catch up with liberal arts colleges very soon.

I like having her around. She does some chores and provides some company to us. But mostly she stays to herself studying or reading. If you had told me 10 years ago that she would be living with us after college and that we would be okay with that, I would have thought you crazy.

Her younger sister will get an engineering degree and we will only see here once and awhile after that. We are okay with that also, though we will miss her so much.

We mostly have younger friends so they are not yet at a place where their older children can be living at home.

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

#175

Post by uptown »

dursk wrote: post #164
ryandrake wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you've been investing in index funds for the past 20 years, your 401k is certainly worth more than what you put in. Hell, even if you invested two lump sums right before the dot-com bust and the 07/08 recession, you're still net positive. The markets are currently at all-time highs.

Just in time for people's 401k/retirement contributions. Where to invest that cash when markets are frothy?

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

#176

Post by gaius »

aphextron wrote: post #169
lonesword wrote: post #107

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 r…

This seems like a huge cultural difference from the west. I personally can't imagine having lived with my parents into my 20s. The people I know who did are mostly far more dependent. I think this has a lot to do with our focus on individuality. I don't think I would have developed into the person I am today without having dealt with the hardships of making my own way in life as an independent person. I can absolutel…

Well not "the West" - Italians live at their parents home as long as they can too.

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

#177

Post by hangsi »

raverbashing wrote: post #124
niftich wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culturally, many contemporary societies in Southern Europe -- including places like Italy's boot, Spain, and Greece -- place a strong emphasis on family and don't subscribe as much to the brand of fiercely self-reliant individualism manifested in America that evolved from the 'protestant work ethic'.

> Italy's boot So are you referring to all of Italy or are you saying this doesn't apply to Sicily (or other islands)?

Socioeconomic analysis of Italy normally sees a distinction between the wealthier, more industrial Northern half (e.g. cities like Milan) and the poorer, more agricultural, mafia-troubled Southern half (e.g. Naples) normally including Sicily and Sardinia too. A rough line for the split could be about the latitude of Rome.

"Italy's boot" here corresponds to this Southern Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Italy

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/15/world/north-south-divide-i...

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

#178

Post by chiefalchemist »

I'm going to say a simple X Y plot probably oversimplifies the picture.

1) Parents have been having kids later in life. How many of these are because the child (read: adult offspring) is home to help care of an ill or older parent?

2) As the divorce rate increases homes that were was the right size for a traditional family are now too big for one parent or the other on their own. The kids move back because it's practical for all.

3) Related to 2, the housing market has sucked. Selling for many hasn't been an option. This "enables" yas to stay home longer.

The point is, this isn't a YA issue per se. There are plenty of broader social changes that a helping to redefine the American family unit.

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

#179

Post by witty_username »

malandrew wrote: post #9
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…

The problem already goes beyond millennials. Increasing automation is going to make unskilled labor a huge liability for countries. This is one reason I don't think some of the anti-immigrant position of many Americans (and Europeans) is unwarranted. Every country should want highly skilled labor to help improve their current account, but unskilled labor is huge future liability. There is already a huge surplus of do…

That's only because of the welfare system. Otherwise there is no harm to others because a person with unskilled labour gets paid less over time (they're coming to America and Europe because the wages are better). And it is still probably better for that person than staying in their previous country.
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