14% of Adults Aged 24-34 Still Live at Home

According to a recently released poll from Gallup.com, 29% of all US adults under the age of 35 are still living with their parents.

Gallup broke down the stats further:

18-23 years old - 51% still live with their parents
24-34 years old - 14% still live with their parents

The second number is especially alarming, as this group consists of the young adults who are in their post-college years. It's one thing to live with your parents while you are still attending college, but it's an entirely different situation when you have graduated from college and are still living at home. These numbers just speak to the difficult employment situation in the United States, especially for younger people - many young adults can't find work, and the work that they can find is often paying a much lower wage than they expected. If they graduated from college and managed to get a decent job, there is a strong chance that they have a pile of student loans to pay off. Or, even worse, they may have graduated from college with a pile of student loans and managed to find just a minimum wage job, or even no job at all.

The national unemployment rate may be dropping, but there are still many millions of Americans who are looking for work, and this has made it very difficult for young adults to find meaningful employment that provides a decent wage.

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Of the 29% of all US adults under the age of 35 who are still living at home, 18% are in some sort of a partnership (married or domestic partnership), while another 7% are either divorced or separated.

Here is a breakdown of adults under the age of 35 still living at home by employment situation:

Employed Full-Time - 50%
Employed Part-Time - 18%
Unemployed - 12%
Out of workforce - 20%

So, 50% have full-time jobs but STILL can't afford to move out of their parents house due to a mix of low wages and high expenses.

Finally, here is the breakdown by educational attainment:

High School or less, 41%
Some college, 31%
College graduate, 28%

The last number is especially worrying as it is creating a large number of disheartened young Americans who were told that the blueprint for success starts with a college education. Now they have graduated and are living at home, wondering where it all went wrong.

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Times have changed - for many Americans, the dream of graduating from college, getting a good job and buying a starter home is simply no longer feasible.

Source: Gallup.com - In U.S., 14% of Those Aged 24 to 34 Are Living With Parents

Filed under: General Knowledge