Nearly half of US adults under 30 still live at home — and experts say its reshaping society

The bank of mom and dad is booming.

Almost half of young adults in America either still live with their parents or they receive financial help from their family, according to a new study — and experts say it will completely reshape marriage, kids, and homebuying.

Some 49% of adults aged 18 to 29 live in the family home, while another 47% receive help from someone outside their household to pay their living expenses, according to the Federal Reserve’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of US Households.

The share of young adults still living with mom and dad has risen by 6 percentage points since 2022, and 12 percentage points since 2019, the year before the pandemic, the Fed’s data shows.

Almost half of young adults under 30 still live with their parents, the Fed’s data shows. fizkes – stock.adobe.com

For nearly half of young adults receiving outside help to pay an expense in the past 12 months, the most common cause was to cover housing costs such as rent, mortgage, or utilities, or to pay for a cell phone bill or other general expenses, according to the report.

Economists say this is having a significant effect on society.

“There’s a lot of adult children getting financial support from their parents,” Laura Ullrich, director of economics at Indeed Hiring Lab, told Fortune magazine.

“When household formation slows, it slows new household formation, which also makes the age where people typically get married go up, the age people have their first child goes up, fertility rates go down,” added Ulrich, who has spent years studying household economic trends.

The number of young adults still receiving financial help from their parents is also almost half of the 18-30 population. JU.STOCKER – stock.adobe.com

“People buy fewer houses. It impacts local schools. It’s silly to think about if you’re not an economist, but it has much more far-reaching economic implications than just thinking, oh, there’s just a bunch of adults living at home.”

Ullrich puts young people’s reliance on their parents down to multiple factors, including difficulties landing a first job and soaring housing costs.

“Given what you see written about housing affordability and current inflation rates, but also the difficulty young adults are having in finding a first job, it’s not surprising to see that number go up,” she said.

The trend isn’t restricted to young adults, with more than a quarter (26%) of adults aged 30 to 44 also reporting receiving financial help from outside their household in the past year.

These trends will likely have impacts that shape the US for decades to come, Ulrich warns.

Young adults who in previous generations might have moved to major cities for their first jobs are instead staying closer to home.

“These decisions at the micro level just impact households and family decisions, but at the macro level they do impact more things,” said Ulrich.

“When you have that larger percentage living at home, you will see some of those impacts.”