In the months after the pandemic hit in 2020, nearly 50% of young adults—those aged 18 to 29—lived at home with their parents in the greatest numbers on record since the Great Depression. Some have since moved on, but one-third are still hanging on. Today, about 23 million young adults are shacking up with family—nearly 45% of the age group, per the U.S. Census.
Despite the fact that in many cultures, children are expected to live with their parents and save money well into adulthood, doing so in America can carry an outsize stigma. Just ask personal finance guru Dave Ramsey, who said earlier this year that the situation is due to poor money management.
But many of those adults who moved back home did so intentionally to shore up their debts and finally buy property or hit other financial goals, according to a Bloomberg News and Harris Poll survey of over 4,100 adults, conducted in August. Ramsey may be wrong; roughly 70% of the young adults who live with their parents that the Harris Poll surveyed said they would not be in a strong financial position if they hadn’t opted to live with their parents. The number one reason for moving home was to save money, the poll found, followed by taking care of older family members or dealing with immediate financial constraints.
“It’s really allowed me to put my money towards quality of life goals,” one worker living with her parents in Texas told Fortune’s Alicia Adamczyk, who first reported on the trend in May. “My costs are so low. I’m so lucky to have them.”
That such arrangements are becoming more commonplace is unsurprising in today’s economy—as Adamczyk put it, “rising student loan burdens and housing costs, particularly in major cities, are big reasons why.” It's leading to more acceptance—nearly 90% of Americans don’t think people should be judged for moving back in with their parents, per Bloomberg. “We're in an economy where it's harder to live independently,” Carol Sigelman, a psychology professor at George Washington University, told the outlet. “Adults recognize that it’s tough these days.”
Living at home is no longer taboo
Years ago, moving back in with one's parents’ (not necessarily in their basement) was painted as a millennial problem. Graduating into the Great Recession and its aftermath, the generation was walloped by a crushing job market, student loan debt, and global financial freefall, which left them struggling to establish a career and independent life as a postgrad. Today, many of them are hitting traditional milestones (getting married, buying a home, buying a car) significantly later than their parents did—if they’ve managed to do so at all.
It seemed a similar began to unfold when the pandemic hit and a record number of young adults, from college students to people in their mid-twenties, moved back home. The difference today is that many of them haven’t left, even though the coronavirus recession was much shorter-lived than the financial crisis and the job market vastly improved for young adults. But things only got more expensive, prompting many to stay. When rents in every major city are through the roof, inflation is spiking once again, and salaries are rarely able to keep pace, paying for DoorDash instead of eating your parents’ cooking can seem difficult to justify.
The way things are trending, living with parents has become less of an anomaly and more a feature of the times, and there’s little reason to believe—with how pricey day-to-day life has become—that things will stand to be much different anytime soon. Young adults certainly feel that way; few of them believe they’ll ever be able to retire or own a home.
That explains why they’re so willing to cut costs where they can, and an apartment of their own (while valuable for its privacy and the independence it affords) is no small expense—median rent has soared by 25% since 2019. Tiana Patillo, a financial advisor at Vanguard, told Adamczyk that living with the parents can be a strategic move to pursuing financial goals. Indeed, some millennials say it's helped them afford to buy a home.
Just ask one 24-year-old who save up for a $250,000 house of her own by living in a temporary tiny house in her parents’ backyard. “If I had to rent, there’s no way I would have been able to purchase a home,” she told Fortune. “I don’t think I would [have been] able to purchase for another five to seven years.”
It seems like the perfect compromise; her younger brother moved into the 350-square-foot fort when she moved out. It’s anyone’s guess what Dave Ramsey would have to say about it.
