I think this is inaccurate reporting. Lots of homes don’t have basements, so many of these grads are simply living back home in their parents’ house, without even the separation of a basement living space.
Not a good situation for all sorts of reasons and most so-called economic proposals from Obama and others will only make matters worse.
Why would anyone live in the basement instead of their bedroom?
I wonder about how much of this is a natural demographic evolution.
Up until World War I, it was seen as normal for adult children to live in the family home, unless there was no room or they had particular success enough to build or buy their own home.
However, after the war, the very accurate song (1918) was, “How ‘Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm? (After They’ve Seen Paree)”. The truth is, they couldn’t. Vast numbers of Americans left rural farms and headed into the cities.
Many remained, however, until the double whammy of the Dust Bowl, which wiped out thousands of farms from Texas to Canada, and the Great Depression (where the federal government wiped out thousands more farms intentionally.)
Finally, after World War II, there was a huge rush West to the boom town cities and their suburbs. With prosperity it *unusually* became the norm for children to move out when adults.
However, once again, times may be changing. A combination of factors including student loans, inflated home prices, high taxes, and far less job security, are making the old ways seem a lot more sensible.
If your parents have a large, mortgage free home, why should a single child move out? Not only can they save a fortune if they work, but they can help their parents in their old age, instead of paying a fortune for their care.
The drawback, of course, is marriage and children, since most suburban homes are designed for one family, not two. And marriage is designed for two people, not a spouse and their parents, at least in the early years.
Things change. Perhaps people will start planning ahead by building two or even three family homes, for them and their children. If for no other reason, than prosperity may be like lightening, not striking in the same place twice.
“If you like living in your parent’s basement, you can keep living in your parent’s basement.”
If you do, we’ll list you as another success story in omoslem’s recovery, and take you off the unemployment rolls.
Raise the import tariffs and lower the income tax by an equal amount.
Has anyone seen any of these basement dwellers praising obamacare for putting them on their parents’ polities?
“The unemployment rate, as calculated by Gallup, among those in the workforce” eh?
unemployment among those in the workforce?
what gobbledegook
I’m sure a sizeable portion of these college graduates were gung-ho Obama Forward! idiots who will never make the connection regarding what dear leader did to them. They will watch Jon Stewart and think conservatives and Sarah Palin are the reason they are broke and will never be able to have a home of their own.
My lovely neighbors who include a mother and a father and 3 adult children all live together under one roof. Two of the children have very good jobs and contribute to the household. The Third, a girl, is finding it hard to find her place in society. They are all hardworking, decent people and fine neighbors. None of them are on the dole - the young people either cannot afford to move into their own apartments or choose to live with their families who they seem to love very much. It reminds me of tales told to me by my mother who lived through the very worst of the Depression.
#Jellin’LikeAfelonWithBubblesByYellen
Stolen from the comments there... Just had to repost it.
How many million failures to launch are the talking about.
%’s don’t really mean that much.
So what is number of failures to launch?
Thanks