Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the accompanying video from professor Peter St. Onge.
The share of young adults still living with their parents just hit its highest level since 1940.
Of course, in 1940, they lived at home because they were saving themselves for a good [husband or wife]. Today, they live at home because rat-infested, one-bedrooms cost 60 hours a week packing groceries.
It’s getting worse fast: At age 25, 14% of the Silent Generation lived at home. It was 15% for Boomers. It was 20% for Gen X, 27% for millennials, and now it’s 30% of Gen Z.
Taken all together, young adults living at home went from 7% in 1970 to 17% today and rising fast. Note that in 1970, most young adults living at home could afford to move out—60%. Today, that’s 18%. The other 82% are stuck.
This is interesting because adults forced to live with…
