Five years after the 2008 financial crisis, younger Americans are still not economically stable enough to live on their own.
Tuesday’s job reports showed that about 16 percent of young people are unable to find a job. Only 42 percent of this age group is fully employed. This economic hardship is making it increasingly difficult for millennials to fend for themselves.
A recent Pew study found that roughly one in three people between the ages of 18 and 35 are not in charge of their own household.
The survey looked at data from March of 2013, which they found to be virtually the same as the information they collected in March of 2012. These numbers were actually lower than the percentage of millennials that headed up their own households during the height of the Great Recession in 2009.
Researchers fear that the lack of household formation amongst young people could have a negative impact on the housing markets and other industries, such as ones associated with household furnishings, if this generation remains hesitant to live independently.
If young people are not living on their own, where are they living?
Many of them are still staying with mom and dad. About 34 percent of Americans aged 18 to 32 live in their parents’ home. This data is unchanged from what Pew found in 2012.
The number of older millennials that still camp out with their parents has also remained steady. Around 15 percent of people between the ages 25 and 32 lived with their parents over the past two years. Employment status is a major factor in whether members of this age group have their own homes.
“It is really not cool to live in your parents’ basement,” said Evan Feinberg, president of the Millennial-oriented group Generation Opportunity. He told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the economy has left younger Americans with few other options.
“Millennials want to be living independently, but if they cannot find a job or if they graduate from college buried in debt, they may not have an option,” Feinberg explained.
The employment situation for young people was not always this bleak. Prior to the Great Recession, about 70 percent were employed. But those numbers have yet to rebound to pre-recession levels.
Feinberg has mixed feelings about the future. He said, “I am optimistic because we are the most creative and innovative generation this country has ever known. … We are building and creating things that will improve this world.”
However, he added, “What makes me pessimistic is that the government keeps on getting in the way of us doing those things. They are regulating and spending away our future.”
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