The question that was ask in the survey was: How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)
I understand that YC is questioning the results of the survey. The YC community is very privileged; and i bet, if we do the same survey in this community, 20% or less of adults rely on their parents.
Haha. I had the opposite thought. If they are very privileged, wouldn’t they rely more? I guess there is privileged you make yourself and privileged you are born into and then more easily make for yourself. But if you are the latter and can support yourself, would you really then do it entirely on your own and not still benefit/rely from/on your parents? I’m not sure (and yes I am including family vacations, connections, and other kinds of arrangements).
When I was a kid, we never had a ton of extra money, but my parents were very supportive-- they paid for most of my college expenses, for example. Their outlook was that us kids shouldn't have to work-- "school is your job". (However, both my sister and I _did_ have jobs while in school).
However, I never _asked_ my parents for money. I had a good education and a well-paying job, and was able to turn IPO money into a house down payment. In the end, we struggled to close the deal, and my wife and I both asked to borrow money from our parents. Of course they were happy to do so, but I still remember it as feeling so hard to do -- just something that I "shouldn't" have to do. And, of course, it also made me reflect on those who didn't have family support to fall back on, let alone jobs that paid well.
I have never asked my parents for money. They have had to resort to trickery (asking for bank details for some passport stuff) to send me money. I hope to be able to do the same for my kid.
Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes:
- "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless.
- surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey.
- how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution?
Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Northwestern page [1].
> Methodology
The Harris Poll conducted a total of 4,375 online interviews among the general U.S. adult (18+) population between January 5th and January 21st, 2026. Included in this overall total is a sample of 816 High-Net-Worth individuals (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).
You are reading gp’s comment correctly as it was written, but it omits the next line in the source study:
> Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to
Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income.
They oversampled in major markets where they work and in high-net-worth populations (who they service), but their claims are for the overall US adult population.
Oversampling like this is pretty routine in survey research. It improves the precision of any subgroup analyses you might want to do, and, to a first approximation, it doesn’t tend to bias the weighted overall-population claims in one direction or another.
I think about it like Google Earth or something. I happen to have much-higher-res imagery of London than of the Cotswolds. That doesn’t mean my view, when zoomed out to “the whole United Kingdom,” is necessarily misleading. It does mean I can additionally make more detailed claims about Piccadilly Circus than about the sheep fields or whatever.
I’ve certainly seen trust fund kids who’s success is anchored on “daddy gave me a sweet job at his company” and others who’d be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for the constant money poured into the legal system by their parents.
There’s a huge spectrum. I’m mid 40s and my wife grew up much wealthier than I did. We have done quite well, but I I’m a bit frugal, like to save, despise waste and excess, and therefore don’t like traveling like they do. I like traveling but all the fancy upgraded experiences at every turn is what I refuse to spend money on. But we don’t go without, we “rely” on my in laws to upgrade our travel (or that’s how my wife has structured the relationship with them, they pay for everything and we cover the drinks is basically how it works out). I’m not a huge fan of it but they don’t care and it keeps my wife off my back lol, so whatever. We travel with them a lot but even when we don’t I think my wife uses their card to pay for it. It’s between them is what I say, I don’t want to be a part of it as it feels like we’re taking advantage of them but apparently they’re fine with it. Is this fitting the definition of “rely” because it’s nonessential
Typically surveys are adjusted for sampling biases before reporting. That appears to be the case here. So there is usually some attempt to account for the biases in the sampled population.
The impulse to ask "what population was sampled?" is good but its not always a straight line from there to "these results directly reflect that sampling bias."
In fact, from the page you posted: "Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income. A full methodology is available."
I would presume that the headline number attempts to account for sampling bias.
I agree with you - there’s usually some adjustment for sampling bias, and this study says it is matching Census targets. But I had to go three levels down to see that info before I derive any meaning from the number.
My concern is that headlines like “x% of adults do y” get repeated without anyone (sometimes even journalists writing the article) seeing the methodology or nuance behind them. Context matters.
My 20-something son is living with us but he does pay (some) rent.
I half expect to have to apologize for this, like when I was growing up people would think you are a loser if you were in this situation. Today people think we are really smart and the people who are paying more rent than they can afford to live around that are losing.
Either way, the idea that the natural and normal state of affairs is that every person can go out into the world and be a perfectly self sufficient but comfortable atomized economic unit without support from their family or society is deeply flawed.
This wasn't the norm for most of human history, and it isn't the norm globally today.
Slavery and massive wealth disparity was also the norm for most of human history, but just like generational wealth transfer, that doesn't mean it's equitable (or sustainable). Personally, I'm concerned that this will lead to greater wealth transfer from poor to rich and the subsequent dissolution of social norms that hold countries and cultures together. But I don't really care, I have nothing to lose here.
I may have ended up that way if I hadn’t gotten into software as a teenager. Luckily a did and the timing was right for me to make some sort of decent career out of it.
I did live independently prior to going into software, but it sucked and was fragile and likely would have fallen apart long term. I also doubt I could find a similar living situation as a young man with no credit or much money to his name. Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
> Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
Rental approvals are ridiculous. We're renting an apartment while we remodel our house.
We've taken out mortgages, refi'd mortgages, and (by now) taken out 3 HELOCs in a row (2 of them subsequently closed as we needed to re-file for more $). While there's a lot of paperwork involved, it feels pretty easy. "Promise to pay us back? Cool!"
Filling out apartment rentals was awful. The rejections, the tiny paper forms asking you about creditors and bank accounts, how much money you owe each of them every month, personal references, "supervisor's phone number", have you ever been to jail, ever failed to pay rent for any reason, previous landlords' contact info. Look, I get that rent is an unsecured obligation (vs a mortgage), but every step of it was gross and accusatory.
Not a reply I expected to see on HN, but frankly I agree.
I've heard enough "this country doesn't have enough talent!!! We need millions more immigrants to cover the gap!" While almost every recent cybersecurity graduate I know is quite literally UNABLE to find a relevant job, with most resigning to hitting up the employers of jobs they had in HS with low-skill work like wiping down decommissioned K-12 Chromebooks for resale on ebay.
What an absolute waste of their talents.
We obviously have the talent in this country, we're literally the forefront of the field. Employers just prefer a 'subclass' of laborers with less rights (e.g. H1Bs/illegal immigrants that the employer can hold over their head) and lower minimum livable salary compared to regular citizens.
They brought in immigrants specifically to have more bodies who will vote for pro-government moves. The “western civilization” is on a strict time limit.
We had an article a few days ago on the Zuckerbergs of the world trying to find their way into the Chinese party. We’ll see how that goes for them.
I think the word "rely" is doing some heavy lifting here. Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.
According to that 17% of boomers+ are dependent on their parents. Just looking at boomers, that is around 70 on average. How many people that age even have parents still alive, let alone financially depend on them?
Not only that, if you're a single boomer with a living parent and neither of you have much other incomes its probably better to cohabitate in that old family house that was paid off in the 90s and share what little benefits you both receive.
I don't know, that one doesn't seem as benign as your making it out to be. I would say if you're having your parents subsidize your phone bill you're still not technically living on your own.
>> Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.
I think there's some important things like this that should be considered. In the late 90's early aughts, I didn't need a laptop, smartphone and 24/7 internet access with 1GB download speeds or half the technological stuff kids need these days to be a contributing member of society.
Now those are all standard items for kids growing up. When I was in college in 2000, life was pretty easy. I paid $350/month for rent, cable, heat and landline phone. That was literally my entire financial costs for the month. Beer, going out to the bars, random things here and there? Easy to cover when you're making $10/hour working 35 hours a week.
Now? Your basic needs will consistently run $1,500 for all of the stuff you need to function into today's society. Having your parents covering some of that in order for you to live on your own I think is not abnormal any more.
As a Gen Xer, we had it really good. I've started to realize kids these days are put at a massive disadvantage because we require everything to be accessible via the internet and smartphones.
CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692. So if it really costs $1500 to cover the things you've mentioned (noticeabley absent: student loans, health insurance, car payments) then either our society is deeply fucked or your list has changed or your estimates are wrong or your memory is wrong or all of the above.
> CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692.
Rent alone will probably blow that. I live in a burnt out rust belt shithole city and I’m struggling to understand how rent is this high. I pay a good bit more than $692 to live in a slum just outside the ghetto right now and I have to feel gracious for that. It’s closer to what I paid in a decent middle class neighborhood in Florida. That was only 5-6 years ago.
This is in a city where the best people can say about it is: “well it’s cheaper”.
Hell when I lived in South Carolina from 2017-2019. My apartment there was closer to the stated inflation figure, but this was for a place that regularly flooded the downstairs neighbors and left me for weeks without AC in the peak of summer because of careless management.
Still not as bad as business rents. I’ve seen downtown business close because they’re being made to be $7000 for a shitty 100 year old property surrounded by condemned properties.
Let me suggest the problem: CPI inflation suggests a rough doubling of basic living costs. How many jobs can you point to that are paying 2x in 2026 what they were paying in 2000?
There are some. But the data seems to suggest that the majority do not.
I lived with my parents until I was 20 and they helped me out until I was 22. My girlfriend's kids are on the same path. Though even with people in their 30s and 40s I think it's common to get help for unexpected big expenses because a lot of people don't have adequate emergency funds.
The premise of TFA along with the entirety of the comments are eloquently embodied by the misfit troubadour and grunge philosopher Todd Snider in Statistician's Blues [0]
33% of GenX is still depending on their parents? That's shocking... I'm at the young end of GenX at 49yo. So, a slice of the population that is fast approaching retirement age is still reliant on their septuagenarian or octogenarian parents for money? Wow.
OK, now I'm questioning the whole thing... it also claims 17% of Boomers reliant on their parents. So, we have some substantial number of 62-80 years olds relying on their 90-100 year old parents? Seems unlikely.
Maybe you're not familiar with the entire economy? There are a lot of households that depend on retirement checks of the oldest members and households that don't have traditional work but may have family homes, businesses and farms still in the name of the oldest relatives. Different groups would have different results as far as whether they will inherit independence or become destitute if parents die.
Are they counting free housing as 'financial support'? A number of states have perverse incentives to delay the legal transfer of a home as long as possible, like with CA's Prop 13.
These numbers are a nice snapshot, but I see no comparison to historical numbers in the article. I know many families who have had intergenerational support happening from older to younger and vice versa.
This seems to be some self-help for the well-off (and their kids) to not feel bad about such dependence, but totally ignores the large population whose parents aren't affluent enough to support their children. Or may even need support from their children. I don't think the feefees of the well off is the gravest issue here.
So if said kids are relying on their parents for support... how are their kids going to rely on them? The idea behind generational wealth is that there is something left to pass down. If you have nothing to pass down, because both you and your parents spent it all, then you're fully on your own to support yourself. Somewhere along the line the bill always comes due.
Health care costs at the end of your life can eat everything you've ever saved and more. Cost of maintenance on housing is increasing and property insurance rates + HOA rates are going up. This idea only works under ideal conditions.
I'd be curious if the folks that are advocating for people to provide support to their adults kids also expect those adult kids to keep their parents living with them when elderly. I know assisted living facilities charge exorbitant amounts of money, to the point it's often advised to setup a trust, so the parent's assets are no longer viewed as their assets. These facilities apparently charge based on assets, where if you have none then suddenly the monthly cost to live there equates only to the value of your Social Security Income payments.
Unfortunately that is the sad reality of the state of fiscal literacy in the country. We have work to do to prepare people for their own futures. Pensions were nice but this transition to private plans has been rough, with far too many believing their Social Security Income alone will be enough to sustain them in their golden years.
Searching the internet, one can read more, such as:
> In August 1971, alongside the "Nixon Shock" that severed the dollar's convertibility to gold, the Nixon administration imposed a 90-day economy-wide freeze on all wages and prices. This was the first time the U.S. enacted wage and price controls outside of wartime. Following the initial 90-day freeze, the Nixon administration implemented a complex, multi-tiered price control system on the petroleum industry that lasted for years.
> In August 1971, Nixon was "floating" the dollar, abandoning the gold standard and "freezing" prices and wages.
> Why did America deliberately destroy its own manufacturing industry?
And starts off,
> It did not happen all at once. Americans watched their own country lose it, brand by brand, factory by factory. Every time, the country washanded the same three reasons. (It looked inevitable. And every one of them was true enough to believe. Plenty of those factories were still making money the day they were ordered shut. They closed anyway, on the say-so of men who had never worked a shift in their lives and grew richer each time another one went dark....
What do you call the situation where your parents depend on your support? I helped my dad with a 6000 Euro out of pocket surgery so he can regain the use of his shoulder. And I'm an average working class Europoor, not a stock broker. And my mom is paying some of the bills for my grandma because she can't afford the bills on her ~300 Euro pension.
Its expensive out there. I used to judge people for not being able to stand on their own but now my mindset is if someone is working 40+ hours a week and sticking to a reasonable budget and not driving a new car then not sure what else we can ask them to do.
Most of these people that are getting help aren't saving for retirement either so its just a long game of desperation. Easy to say get a better job but not everyone has the skills or mental acuity to do that. With that said there are aboslutely a lot of people that have no concept of budgeting and are their own worst enemy
Reminder that black US slave descendants have a median wealth of about $5000 (i.e the equity they have in their cars.) When you consider black crime, consider the OP statistic in light of that. Most black people I know have parents who rely on their support (and siblings, and cousins, etc.)
Whatever is happening to 42% of Americans is happening to 97% (figures drawn from my ass) of black Americans. $5000 is pretty good. I'm from Chicago, where the median black wealth is $0.
The question that was ask in the survey was: How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)
I understand that YC is questioning the results of the survey. The YC community is very privileged; and i bet, if we do the same survey in this community, 20% or less of adults rely on their parents.
Haha. I had the opposite thought. If they are very privileged, wouldn’t they rely more? I guess there is privileged you make yourself and privileged you are born into and then more easily make for yourself. But if you are the latter and can support yourself, would you really then do it entirely on your own and not still benefit/rely from/on your parents? I’m not sure (and yes I am including family vacations, connections, and other kinds of arrangements).
When I was a kid, we never had a ton of extra money, but my parents were very supportive-- they paid for most of my college expenses, for example. Their outlook was that us kids shouldn't have to work-- "school is your job". (However, both my sister and I _did_ have jobs while in school).
However, I never _asked_ my parents for money. I had a good education and a well-paying job, and was able to turn IPO money into a house down payment. In the end, we struggled to close the deal, and my wife and I both asked to borrow money from our parents. Of course they were happy to do so, but I still remember it as feeling so hard to do -- just something that I "shouldn't" have to do. And, of course, it also made me reflect on those who didn't have family support to fall back on, let alone jobs that paid well.
[delayed]
I have never asked my parents for money. They have had to resort to trickery (asking for bank details for some passport stuff) to send me money. I hope to be able to do the same for my kid.
Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes:
- "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless. - surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey. - how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution?
Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Northwestern page [1].
> Methodology The Harris Poll conducted a total of 4,375 online interviews among the general U.S. adult (18+) population between January 5th and January 21st, 2026. Included in this overall total is a sample of 816 High-Net-Worth individuals (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).
[0] https://filecache.mediaroom.com/mr5mr_nwmutual/179168/2026%2...
[1] https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...
> Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes
Would that everyone employed this level of skepticism before commenting on figures.
> (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).
Am I reading this wrong, is this about trust fund kids?
You are reading gp’s comment correctly as it was written, but it omits the next line in the source study:
> Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income.
They oversampled in major markets where they work and in high-net-worth populations (who they service), but their claims are for the overall US adult population.
Oversampling like this is pretty routine in survey research. It improves the precision of any subgroup analyses you might want to do, and, to a first approximation, it doesn’t tend to bias the weighted overall-population claims in one direction or another.
I think about it like Google Earth or something. I happen to have much-higher-res imagery of London than of the Cotswolds. That doesn’t mean my view, when zoomed out to “the whole United Kingdom,” is necessarily misleading. It does mean I can additionally make more detailed claims about Piccadilly Circus than about the sheep fields or whatever.
How you define “rely”.
I’ve certainly seen trust fund kids who’s success is anchored on “daddy gave me a sweet job at his company” and others who’d be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for the constant money poured into the legal system by their parents.
There’s a huge spectrum. I’m mid 40s and my wife grew up much wealthier than I did. We have done quite well, but I I’m a bit frugal, like to save, despise waste and excess, and therefore don’t like traveling like they do. I like traveling but all the fancy upgraded experiences at every turn is what I refuse to spend money on. But we don’t go without, we “rely” on my in laws to upgrade our travel (or that’s how my wife has structured the relationship with them, they pay for everything and we cover the drinks is basically how it works out). I’m not a huge fan of it but they don’t care and it keeps my wife off my back lol, so whatever. We travel with them a lot but even when we don’t I think my wife uses their card to pay for it. It’s between them is what I say, I don’t want to be a part of it as it feels like we’re taking advantage of them but apparently they’re fine with it. Is this fitting the definition of “rely” because it’s nonessential
> total of 4,375 online interviews
> Included in this overall total is a sample of 816 High-Net-Worth
Looks like about 1/5 are in the trust fund kid category.
Sure seems like it if you are excluding property.
If you look into Italy its like 60% to 70%.
Typically surveys are adjusted for sampling biases before reporting. That appears to be the case here. So there is usually some attempt to account for the biases in the sampled population.
The impulse to ask "what population was sampled?" is good but its not always a straight line from there to "these results directly reflect that sampling bias."
In fact, from the page you posted: "Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income. A full methodology is available."
I would presume that the headline number attempts to account for sampling bias.
I agree with you - there’s usually some adjustment for sampling bias, and this study says it is matching Census targets. But I had to go three levels down to see that info before I derive any meaning from the number.
My concern is that headlines like “x% of adults do y” get repeated without anyone (sometimes even journalists writing the article) seeing the methodology or nuance behind them. Context matters.
Still, it lowers the resolution of the results if you have to throw out a significant portion of the interviews.
You're not just throwing them out though, those responses do have input. Their input is just weighted.
https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/2018/01/26/how-different...
My 20-something son is living with us but he does pay (some) rent.
I half expect to have to apologize for this, like when I was growing up people would think you are a loser if you were in this situation. Today people think we are really smart and the people who are paying more rent than they can afford to live around that are losing.
The figure might be misleading. It might not be.
Either way, the idea that the natural and normal state of affairs is that every person can go out into the world and be a perfectly self sufficient but comfortable atomized economic unit without support from their family or society is deeply flawed.
This wasn't the norm for most of human history, and it isn't the norm globally today.
Look at the comment above, the sample is from really wealthy parents, not the median income in the US, so I'm sure that skews the data.
No, it mentioned 816 out of more than 4500 respondents had net worth over $1M.
That's quite different to your claim.
It might, however, be a nice thing to aspire to, no? Economic self-sufficiency doesn't have to imply atomization, I think.
Slavery and massive wealth disparity was also the norm for most of human history, but just like generational wealth transfer, that doesn't mean it's equitable (or sustainable). Personally, I'm concerned that this will lead to greater wealth transfer from poor to rich and the subsequent dissolution of social norms that hold countries and cultures together. But I don't really care, I have nothing to lose here.
I may have ended up that way if I hadn’t gotten into software as a teenager. Luckily a did and the timing was right for me to make some sort of decent career out of it.
I did live independently prior to going into software, but it sucked and was fragile and likely would have fallen apart long term. I also doubt I could find a similar living situation as a young man with no credit or much money to his name. Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
> Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.
Rental approvals are ridiculous. We're renting an apartment while we remodel our house.
We've taken out mortgages, refi'd mortgages, and (by now) taken out 3 HELOCs in a row (2 of them subsequently closed as we needed to re-file for more $). While there's a lot of paperwork involved, it feels pretty easy. "Promise to pay us back? Cool!"
Filling out apartment rentals was awful. The rejections, the tiny paper forms asking you about creditors and bank accounts, how much money you owe each of them every month, personal references, "supervisor's phone number", have you ever been to jail, ever failed to pay rent for any reason, previous landlords' contact info. Look, I get that rent is an unsecured obligation (vs a mortgage), but every step of it was gross and accusatory.
The main thing the article attempts to do is to normalize a situation where parents support their kids into their 20s, 30s and may be 40s.
My kids are in their 20s and I still support them.
But, I want the government to STOP
- spending my taxes on wars and military - spending my taxes on supporting immigration programs - immigration programs altogether
May be then financial and work situation can finally improve for kids of the people who built out the western civilization.
Not a reply I expected to see on HN, but frankly I agree.
I've heard enough "this country doesn't have enough talent!!! We need millions more immigrants to cover the gap!" While almost every recent cybersecurity graduate I know is quite literally UNABLE to find a relevant job, with most resigning to hitting up the employers of jobs they had in HS with low-skill work like wiping down decommissioned K-12 Chromebooks for resale on ebay.
What an absolute waste of their talents.
We obviously have the talent in this country, we're literally the forefront of the field. Employers just prefer a 'subclass' of laborers with less rights (e.g. H1Bs/illegal immigrants that the employer can hold over their head) and lower minimum livable salary compared to regular citizens.
They brought in immigrants specifically to have more bodies who will vote for pro-government moves. The “western civilization” is on a strict time limit.
We had an article a few days ago on the Zuckerbergs of the world trying to find their way into the Chinese party. We’ll see how that goes for them.
I really hope nothing like that happens to China and Japan. I am glad that their respective languages are such good natural barriers.
I think the word "rely" is doing some heavy lifting here. Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.
I went to the source[1] referenced by the article and found the exact question. It took about 90 seconds.
"How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)"
1: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...
According to that 17% of boomers+ are dependent on their parents. Just looking at boomers, that is around 70 on average. How many people that age even have parents still alive, let alone financially depend on them?
I'd speculate (based on a study I've recently been made aware of) about 17%.
Boomers can be trust fund babies too.
Not only that, if you're a single boomer with a living parent and neither of you have much other incomes its probably better to cohabitate in that old family house that was paid off in the 90s and share what little benefits you both receive.
Yet, with 37% of people being only a $400 surprise cost away from financial destitution, you might be completely wrong.
https://www.investopedia.com/here-s-how-many-americans-can-t...
I don't know, that one doesn't seem as benign as your making it out to be. I would say if you're having your parents subsidize your phone bill you're still not technically living on your own.
>> Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.
I think there's some important things like this that should be considered. In the late 90's early aughts, I didn't need a laptop, smartphone and 24/7 internet access with 1GB download speeds or half the technological stuff kids need these days to be a contributing member of society.
Now those are all standard items for kids growing up. When I was in college in 2000, life was pretty easy. I paid $350/month for rent, cable, heat and landline phone. That was literally my entire financial costs for the month. Beer, going out to the bars, random things here and there? Easy to cover when you're making $10/hour working 35 hours a week.
Now? Your basic needs will consistently run $1,500 for all of the stuff you need to function into today's society. Having your parents covering some of that in order for you to live on your own I think is not abnormal any more.
As a Gen Xer, we had it really good. I've started to realize kids these days are put at a massive disadvantage because we require everything to be accessible via the internet and smartphones.
> $350/month [ 2000 ]
> $1500/month [ 2026 ]
CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692. So if it really costs $1500 to cover the things you've mentioned (noticeabley absent: student loans, health insurance, car payments) then either our society is deeply fucked or your list has changed or your estimates are wrong or your memory is wrong or all of the above.
> CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692.
Rent alone will probably blow that. I live in a burnt out rust belt shithole city and I’m struggling to understand how rent is this high. I pay a good bit more than $692 to live in a slum just outside the ghetto right now and I have to feel gracious for that. It’s closer to what I paid in a decent middle class neighborhood in Florida. That was only 5-6 years ago.
This is in a city where the best people can say about it is: “well it’s cheaper”.
Hell when I lived in South Carolina from 2017-2019. My apartment there was closer to the stated inflation figure, but this was for a place that regularly flooded the downstairs neighbors and left me for weeks without AC in the peak of summer because of careless management.
Still not as bad as business rents. I’ve seen downtown business close because they’re being made to be $7000 for a shitty 100 year old property surrounded by condemned properties.
Let me suggest the problem: CPI inflation suggests a rough doubling of basic living costs. How many jobs can you point to that are paying 2x in 2026 what they were paying in 2000?
There are some. But the data seems to suggest that the majority do not.
CPI is a bullshit number
I lived with my parents until I was 20 and they helped me out until I was 22. My girlfriend's kids are on the same path. Though even with people in their 30s and 40s I think it's common to get help for unexpected big expenses because a lot of people don't have adequate emergency funds.
The premise of TFA along with the entirety of the comments are eloquently embodied by the misfit troubadour and grunge philosopher Todd Snider in Statistician's Blues [0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK6zjtUj00
33% of GenX is still depending on their parents? That's shocking... I'm at the young end of GenX at 49yo. So, a slice of the population that is fast approaching retirement age is still reliant on their septuagenarian or octogenarian parents for money? Wow.
Source: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...
OK, now I'm questioning the whole thing... it also claims 17% of Boomers reliant on their parents. So, we have some substantial number of 62-80 years olds relying on their 90-100 year old parents? Seems unlikely.
Maybe you're not familiar with the entire economy? There are a lot of households that depend on retirement checks of the oldest members and households that don't have traditional work but may have family homes, businesses and farms still in the name of the oldest relatives. Different groups would have different results as far as whether they will inherit independence or become destitute if parents die.
17% of generally retired people are relying on the retirement checks of their parents ? Really ?
It's plausible if it's an inheritable nest egg amount. Though I agree, seems unlikely.
Are they counting free housing as 'financial support'? A number of states have perverse incentives to delay the legal transfer of a home as long as possible, like with CA's Prop 13.
Wait until you see the homeownership statistics, or the average age of homebuyers.
These numbers are a nice snapshot, but I see no comparison to historical numbers in the article. I know many families who have had intergenerational support happening from older to younger and vice versa.
This seems to be some self-help for the well-off (and their kids) to not feel bad about such dependence, but totally ignores the large population whose parents aren't affluent enough to support their children. Or may even need support from their children. I don't think the feefees of the well off is the gravest issue here.
> A large portion of U.S. adults are making ends meet with help from their parents.
This article is shilling some courseware for CNBC FYI.
I think that's an ad that appears at the bottom of most of the articles on "cnbc make it" so I'm not the specific article is shilling it per se.
So if said kids are relying on their parents for support... how are their kids going to rely on them? The idea behind generational wealth is that there is something left to pass down. If you have nothing to pass down, because both you and your parents spent it all, then you're fully on your own to support yourself. Somewhere along the line the bill always comes due.
How so? If you don’t touch the principal you can live off the investment returns forever and so can your descendants.
Health care costs at the end of your life can eat everything you've ever saved and more. Cost of maintenance on housing is increasing and property insurance rates + HOA rates are going up. This idea only works under ideal conditions.
I'd be curious if the folks that are advocating for people to provide support to their adults kids also expect those adult kids to keep their parents living with them when elderly. I know assisted living facilities charge exorbitant amounts of money, to the point it's often advised to setup a trust, so the parent's assets are no longer viewed as their assets. These facilities apparently charge based on assets, where if you have none then suddenly the monthly cost to live there equates only to the value of your Social Security Income payments.
If my parents are indicative of anything, they're just going with the flow and believing it'll all magically work out.
Unfortunately that is the sad reality of the state of fiscal literacy in the country. We have work to do to prepare people for their own futures. Pensions were nice but this transition to private plans has been rough, with far too many believing their Social Security Income alone will be enough to sustain them in their golden years.
Ok, but why?
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com has been linked on HN may times before.
Is it related to that?
Searching the internet, one can read more, such as:
> In August 1971, alongside the "Nixon Shock" that severed the dollar's convertibility to gold, the Nixon administration imposed a 90-day economy-wide freeze on all wages and prices. This was the first time the U.S. enacted wage and price controls outside of wartime. Following the initial 90-day freeze, the Nixon administration implemented a complex, multi-tiered price control system on the petroleum industry that lasted for years.
> In August 1971, Nixon was "floating" the dollar, abandoning the gold standard and "freezing" prices and wages.
This video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EBEapf3OFw asks the below:
> Why did America deliberately destroy its own manufacturing industry?
And starts off,
> It did not happen all at once. Americans watched their own country lose it, brand by brand, factory by factory. Every time, the country washanded the same three reasons. (It looked inevitable. And every one of them was true enough to believe. Plenty of those factories were still making money the day they were ordered shut. They closed anyway, on the say-so of men who had never worked a shift in their lives and grew richer each time another one went dark....
What do you call the situation where your parents depend on your support? I helped my dad with a 6000 Euro out of pocket surgery so he can regain the use of his shoulder. And I'm an average working class Europoor, not a stock broker. And my mom is paying some of the bills for my grandma because she can't afford the bills on her ~300 Euro pension.
Its expensive out there. I used to judge people for not being able to stand on their own but now my mindset is if someone is working 40+ hours a week and sticking to a reasonable budget and not driving a new car then not sure what else we can ask them to do.
Most of these people that are getting help aren't saving for retirement either so its just a long game of desperation. Easy to say get a better job but not everyone has the skills or mental acuity to do that. With that said there are aboslutely a lot of people that have no concept of budgeting and are their own worst enemy
Reminder that black US slave descendants have a median wealth of about $5000 (i.e the equity they have in their cars.) When you consider black crime, consider the OP statistic in light of that. Most black people I know have parents who rely on their support (and siblings, and cousins, etc.)
Whatever is happening to 42% of Americans is happening to 97% (figures drawn from my ass) of black Americans. $5000 is pretty good. I'm from Chicago, where the median black wealth is $0.
https://colorofwealth.org/
The parallels between the Great Depression and the conditions now are worrisome.
I don't know what you mean, the DOW is over 50k. /s