The economy is growing at an increasing rate, unemployment rates are dropping, and tax rates have been slashed, causing Millennials to move out of their parents house, a recent study shows. This, of course, is great news to many aging parents who have been chomping at the bit to empty their nest.
In 2017, around 31 percent of young adults were living in their parent’s house, which is down slightly from the more than 32 percent the year before. The number of 18 to 34 olds living at home edged downward, according to data from CoStar Group, a commercial real estate information company based in New York.
While these numbers are still higher than the long term average of 28 percent for the age group, it is a downward trend the firm expects to continue due to the strength of the job market and overall economy.
“There are more individuals in that age cohort who are employed,” said Michael Cohen, director of advisory services at CoStar. “We also should see some wage gains in that age range…Both of those things help.”
May’s job numbers showed the U.S. unemployment rate at 3.8 percent, the level which many economists claim is “near full employment.” The tightening labor market means that employers are beginning to raise starting wages to become more attractive to those who are looking for full-time employment, especially among young adults.
“That gives me some degree of confidence that we’ll see some more momentum…in [young adults] moving out of Mom’s place,” Cohen said, in a report from CNBC.
Those in the Millennial Generation have faced daunting financial challenges that their parents were not subjected to. Apart from most of them hitting the job market out of college during the Great Recession, the age group carries over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt, causing a languishing debt anchor that has most delaying life on their own. Furthermore, their wages are remarkably lower than their parents’ earnings when they were in their 20s decades ago.
The advocacy group Young Invincibles conducted a study in 2017 with data from the Federal Reserve on the matter of lacking wages. The study showed that Millennials earned an average of $40,581 in 2013, which is 20 percent less than the inflation-adjusted $50,910 earned by the “Baby Boomers” in 1989.
Currently, approximately 35 percent of the American workforce are Millennials, defined as those aged 21 to 36 in 2017. This makes them the largest generation in the U.S. labor force.
A great mind once said, “if you’re not a liberal at 21, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at 35, you have no brain.”
While many Millennials are continuously excoriating the conservative brand and opting for the European-style socialism of Bernie Sanders and other leaders on the progressive left, hopefully soon, they will come to understand that it was the legislation from Republican majority in Congress and President Donald Trump that helped skyrocket the U.S. economy. Not much can be gone without good growth, especially moving out of one’s parents’ home and starting out in life.
