Sunday, March 25, 2012

Rock meet Hard Place: If young adults left home the economy would get better. Can't leave home because the economy is not better. How do we break this deadlock??

The number of "children" (young adults) living with their parents for longer periods of time has increased in the last 10 years, and has accelerated in the last 4 years. Certainly understandable with the severity of the recent recession.
""This generation of young adults has sometimes been labeled the “boomerang generation” for its proclivity to move out of the family home for a time and then boomerang right back. The Great Recession seems to have accelerated this tendency. The Pew Research survey found that among all adults ages 18 to 34, 24% moved back in with their parents in recent years after living on their own because of economic conditions."" (Pew Research)
Source: The Economix
However, surveys from The Pew Center showed an increasing number of these young adults (and I assume the parents) are ok with this trend:

78%: Percent of 25-34 year olds who have lived with their parents and are satisfied with the arrangement.

This puts our recovery in between a rock and a hard place.  If a good portion of these young adults were to leave home and form their own households it would create demand for lots of goods and services. That would be good for the economy.

But, presumably, they are not leaving

Leave home and the economy will get better faster. Can't leave home because the economy is not producing jobs in the quantity and quality needed. 

Rock meet Hard Place....

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