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Approximately 1 in 3 U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 live in their parents’ home, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
The pandemic caused more young adults to return home or remain living with their parents into their late 20s and 30s, but aside from that spike, the numbers have remained fairly consistent in recent years.
Pre-pandemic, the most recent surge in the share of 18- to 34-year-olds living with their parents occurred between 2005 and 2015, according to data from the Census Bureau.
“Those were the times coming [during] the Great Recession and coming out of the Great Recession, and there were a lot of media narratives at the time about millennials eating too much avocado toast to live on their own,” said Joanne Hsu, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan who co-authored a 2015 study on “boomerang” kids for the Federal Reserve.
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“What we found was that part of the reason we see this escalation of young adults not leaving the nest or returning to the nest is this idea that it was harder and harder for them to weather shocks,” Hsu said.
Economic shocks are significant and unexpected events that disrupt financial stability and markets, which then affect households’ income, employment and debt levels. The 2008 financial crisis, the Great Recession and the pandemic are all examples of economic shocks.
More than half of Gen Z adults say they don’t make enough money to live the life they want due to the high cost of living, according to a 2024 survey from Bank of America. A significant number of millennials and Gen Z adults lack emergency savings.
‘Why rent and give my money to someone else?’
Victoria Franklin, 27, moved back to her mom’s house in the summer of 2019 after graduating from college to search for a job in business administration.
“I ended up bartending and waitressing until October [of 2019], where I got my first offer,” Franklin said. “So it did take a little bit longer than I expected.”
She found a job in her field in New York City, which required a two-hour commute from her mother’s home on the Jersey Shore.
“I thought, you know, in six months or so, I’ll move into the city, be closer to the job,” Franklin said. “And the pandemic threw a wrench in those plans.”
Franklin decided to continue living at her mom’s house after switching to a fully remote job in fall 2023.
“My mentality is why rent and give my money to someone else when I can start to own?” Franklin said.
Franklin said she’s saving between 40% and 50% of her income, with “a big chunk” allocated toward a down payment on a house.
While living with parents can provide personal financial benefits, experts say this trend can negatively affect the economy.
“We do also have a situation that what is really good for an individual person or an individual family is not necessarily good for the entire macro economy,” Hsu said. “One of the big boosts to consumer spending is when people form households.”
The Federal Reserve estimated in a 2019 paper that young adults who move out of their parents’ home would spend about $13,000 more per year on things such as housing, food and transportation.
Watch the video above to learn more about why the trend of young adults living with their parents is continuing and what it means for the economy.