Due to waning housing affordability, a growing number of Americans continue to live with their parents into adulthood. 
Living With Parents
Chris Salviati at Apartment List notes More young adults now live with their parents than at any point since 1940
In 1970, just 7 percent of 25 to 35 year-olds lived in their parents’ homes, but as of 2022, that share has more than doubled to 17 percent.
When viewed over a long horizon, the share of young adults who live with their parents1 exhibits a U-shaped trend. In 1940, with the Great Depression still close in the rearview mirror, 17 percent of 25 to 35 year-olds lived at home. But in the ensuing decades, the postwar economic boom and rapid buildup of America’s suburbs enabled more young people to strike out on their own. From 1940 to 1960, the share of young adults living at home fell by more than half to 8 percent, and remained fairly stable at that level through 1980.
Living with parents became slightly more common from 1980 to 2000, and from 2000 to today that growth has picked up even more steam. As of 2022 (the most recent Census data currently available) 17 percent of America’s young adults live with their parents, a rate that is more than double what it was during the low period from 1960 through 1980. The likelihood of 25 to 35 year-olds living with their parents has returned to a level not seen since 1940.
Another way of thinking about this trend is to make the comparison across generational cohorts. The chart below shows the percentage of adults who live with their parents at each age from 25 to 35, broken out by generation. As expected, we see living with parents become less common with age (i.e., it is more likely at age 25 than at age 35). More importantly, we also see the curves gradually shift up for each consecutive generation, as living with parents has become increasingly common over the course the past half-century.
Can’t afford to Move Out
Among young adults who live at home, the share who could comfortably afford to live independently has fallen dramatically. For the purpose of this analysis, we assume that an individual was in a financial position to move out of their parents’ home if they could have paid the median rent for studio and 1-bedroom apartments in the county where they lived without spending more than 30 percent of their individual income on rent.
Even College Grads Increasingly Live with Parents
In 2022, 12 percent of 25 to 35 year-olds with a four-year degree or higher lived with their parents, up from 6 percent in 1980.
Not Surprising
None of this is the least bit surprising. However it’s good to see some numbers even if they are stale.
I suspect we can add two to three percentage points to the total for 2024. If so, that would top the percentage of 1940.
Rent Up at Least 0.4 Percent for 33 Straight Months
The string of 33 consecutive months of rent rising 0.4 percent or more is finally broken.
On July 11, I reported CPI Declines in June, Rent Finally Moderates, Food Away From Home Is a Problem
Hooray. Rent only rose 0.3 percent in June. I suspect that will be the top for some time.
But look at the damage.
Rent is up 23.6 percent since the start of the Covid pandemic.
CPI Index Levels Rent vs Hourly Wages
Rent vs Wages Key Points
- In the last year, rent is up 5.0 percent. Wages rose 4.3 percent.
- In the prior year, rent rose 8.4 percent. Wages rose 5.1 percent.
- Compared to two years ago rent is up 13.9 percent. Wages are up 9.6 percent.
Personal Income Revised Lower for April and May
On July 26, I noted Personal Income Revised Lower for April and May, Spending Higher in May
The BEA revised personal income lower in April and May. Get used to negative revisions because more are coming.
July 18: Continued Unemployment Claims Jump to the Highest Level Since Nov 2021
After stabilizing for about a year, continued unemployment claims have surged in the last two months.
This is hard data, and it ties in with the second-quarter recession theory.
“All Hell Breaks Loose”
Also consider “All Hell Breaks Loose” In the Next Few Months as Recession Bites
Two of us are still adamant that a recession has started. The other is Danielle DiMartino Booth, in her best video yet. Please take a look.
another reason not to move out besides cost is the larger homes and smaller family size. when you are living packed like sardines in a can you’re motivated to move as soon as you are free to go.
crap comparison…why use 1940 ? during the great depression families lived together for survival. oh wait, is that what kids are doing today ?
Aging copper mines are turning into money pits despite demand
https://www.mining.com/web/column-aging-copper-mines-are-turning-into-money-pits-despite-demand/
“To provide most of our power through renewables would take hundreds of times the amount of rare earth metals that we are mining today,” according to Thomas Graedel at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. So renewable energy resources like windmills and solar PV can not ever replace fossil fuels, there’s not enough of many essential minerals to scale this technology up. http://energyskeptic.com/2014/high-tech-cannot-last-rare-earth-metals/
We have used up the low hanging fruit on the resource trees:
https://www.mining.com/copper-price-chile-codelco-face-another-lost-decade-of-output-growth/
Codelco’s struggles are Chile’s struggles: water scarcity, declining grades, depletion rates, skinny project pipelines, industrial action, taxation increases and regulatory uncertainty and ever-expanding capex budgets.
In 2021 Chile produced a quarter of the world’s primary copper output of 21m tonnes, according to the US Geological Survey. On a proportional basis that makes Chile’s position in the world of copper on par not with Saudi Arabia’s in crude oil, but the combined output of the 13 members of Opec.
In a recent report, BMO Capital Markets says Chile is now heading towards two “lost decades” in terms of copper output growth:
“Following the steady ramp-up in the 1990s and early 2000s, output levels have stagnated, with the projections of 6Mtpa-plus of output never coming to pass.
“And this is not for a lack of investment, with a number of large new mines coming to market over this period. Rather, it is a function of decline at existing assets.”
…”it is a function of decline at existing assets”.
.
World’s Top Copper Supplier Codelco Posts Drop in Production
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-top-copper-supplier-codelco-151225895.html
This is when you move in with roommates. Most people have done this, survived and eventually were able to get out on their own, whether through marriage or increased income.
This time is different… we have used up most of the remaining affordable resources… so costs of everything are skyrocketing…
Inflation will continue to thunder higher…
Until the global economy implodes
Living with roommates in a culture with a broken community involves significant opportunity costs and externalities, along with some negative expectations that go beyond the simple savings in rent.
Renting with roommate’s to save money vs community is an unhealthy situation that should be avoided and a sign of a decaying society.
But yes, it’s simply young people’s fault, not the system. /s
During the Chicago-based Stock & Jocks podcast today The Chief said that it would be a good thing for people to get Murphy Beds to get more people into in apartment to save money.
Unequal exchange of labour in the world economyhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49687-y
2 oldest(26 and 29) own homes, married with kid(s)
youngest(23) just grad undergrad and is doing grad work(at liberty college for $11k year)
Good for you!
What’s the best percentage of 25-35s living with their parents? And, should that number be a target to hit?
There is no “best”, and no.
Rents and inflation have risen much faster than salaries. Explains nearly all of this, doesn’t it?
This is the problem https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-perfect-storm
The silent gen were born between the depression and WWII. They never had it easy. When they came back the boomers were born. In the sixties and the seventies the silent Gen struggle with high unemployment, stock markets housing collapse, high inflation and the cold war. LBJ recruited their kid to fight in Vietnam. The boomers rebelled against their parents, society and the gov. Hippies. LSD. Disco, Time sq brothels. Free sex, low wages… During the oil glut in the 80’s and the 90’s the boomers finally settled down. After NAFTA they were tossed out.
In 2022, the US still had one of the lowest shares of young adults living with their parents among OECD countries (the OECD uses a somewhat different definition of the age bracket). The point is that changes in the shares of young adults living with their parents is not solely driven by changes in the affordability of housing, but by changes in a host of cultural and social factors. For example, in my time as a young adult, getting away from parental oversight (and sometimes outright restrictions; “no girlfriends overnight!”) was a big incentive to launch as soon as possible. Nowadays, parents are much more accommodating on all of those fronts (“girlfriends welcome for breakfast!”).
For 60Y shingle women produce several kids from a few men to collect gov goodies. Inflation is killing them. The gov should give them new skills, pay preschool teachers more money and build more daycare centers. Or, if they work the gov should give them tax benefits to employ new immigrants to take care of their family. The gov should partially pay elderly who cannot function to employ new immigrants as caregiver.
We should give/pay illegals NOTHING!
Hate to break it to you but we are headed for a nation of castles and serfs. Get your paddle out and start walking until someone says ‘where are you going with that hay fork?’ Then you can knout him. Or knight him.
It would be nice to see the median income of 20 – 30 year olds over that timeframe in comparison to the median home price. That’s where I think you’ll find the problem.
‘The problem’ is to be found in syphylisation. Can’t stop the process, can’t delay it. Our buboes are ripe.
There is going to be a massive disconnect somewhere in the late 70s to early 80s.
Some of that will be going off the gold standard. But a larger portion will also be that around that time women entered the workforce in numbers so that we went from a nation of single earners and stay at home mothers to a nation of dual earners.
Dual earners means that singles (never married or divorced) can no longer afford homes because their single income competes against dual incomes so you have to make 2x the average just to be equal to dual earners.
The problem has only accelerated as more and more women started working until you reach where we are today with fewer marriages, more divorces and thus way more single people than ever before who can’t afford homes.
Most of the younger generation are lazy. They expect everything to be handed to them I started babysitting when I was 11. I had so many steady jobs I made approximately $100 weekly. When I was 16 I had a full time job at K-Mart. My parents taught us the value of money early. I never rented until this year. We rented short term while our new construction SF home was being built. Paid cash for our home. My husband retired this month and we’re going to travel.
Not so fast Boomer. You stole that from the future and we are coming to take that back
Get yourself Doc Brown’s DeLorean, it’s never coming back.
Wow, Laura! Just wow! All I did in the seventies was eat M and Ms. Smoked all the weed I could get, got drunk a lot and diddled every gal that let me. Now I am rich. The times make us what we are as much as our genes. Tip large, be nice, smile for no reason. Can’t hurt.
I did my shenanigans early. Drinking, weed, smoking etc. When I turned 21 it wasn’t fun anymore. I bought my 1st home at 18.
Ma’am I’ve had a job since I was 14 and done nothing but study and save up like I was told only to then be told that rent for a studio apartment had gone from $305 when my father was my age to nearly $1900 a month where I live. Despite making more than what my father was making at my age I physically can’t move out simply cause the cost of living has far exceeded what I can reasonably handle despite working close to 50 hours a week. We are not lazy, we’ve been dealt a bad hand and are reasonably upset that analytics continue to tell us just how bad our situation is compared to when you were our age. We shouldn’t be killing ourselves just to afford the bare minimum in society.
In progressive states roe vs wade can cut cost. In conservative states women have live with or near their parents. Biden wants change the supreme court to save our
democracy from Trump.
You offer us a delusional viewpoint, my dear Micheal. In reality Ds twist their tongue around words and warp their meanings, thereby corroding rational thought, exacerbating differences. Ie. ‘progressivism’ is really degeneracy, ‘choice’ is really imposition on one of the participants, ‘good’ is really evil and ‘evil’ is really good’, ‘diversity’ is really exclusion, they would destroy democracy to ‘save’ it. ‘Diversity is exclusion. Etc. etc. etc. I don’t hate anyone or want them harmed, but I am a ‘terrorist’ by their lights. Where am I wrong?
My 27 yr old son still lives with me. In NY where a 1 Bdroom apt that is just decent is $1,600 plus utilities. Told him to stay
Have 2,000 Sq Ft house and it is just him and I. Plenty of room to tell him to get out of my face when need be. RN at a hospital 40 minutes away and banking about $55K a yr.
Less I have might have to give him when he leaves.
Rates and property values come down he buys his house.
and what if they don’t ?
as long as this country does not degenerate into a civil war come 2025 I kick his ass out lol
Agreed! What if they don’t? Contingency planning is always the best plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Those of us who were adults ~2006-2012 long ago gave up the illusion that home prices “never go down.”
1940: Living with family to help with Farming work.
2024: In the basement, smoking Ganja and browsing the internet (No Grandkids coming)….
the internet being playing video games and posting about how important they think there everyday whereabouts is on Facebook
like we care
Agreed. Nothing more unsettling in the normal scheme of things than to see a bunch of young people walking around absorbed by a phone.
rome had wheat from egypt and coliseum games. we have food stamps and electronics or sporting events.
watch and note the other parallels
Those About to Die (TV series) – Wikipedia
The year 1940. That was just before the U.S. entered WW2. The timing seems about right.
The cost of daycare for toddlers is between $1,200 to $2,000. Two, three kids cost
more than $2,500/$5,000. Tax credit is bs. Daycare plus $2K/$5K for mortgage, insurance, repairs and taxes cannot be covered by the average family income. Gen-Z and millennials are doing their math.
Yes. Unless both parents make 100K or more, it makes sense for the lower wage earner to become a stay at home parent until all kids are school aged at which point they can return to the workforce.
The daycare savings + additional savings on meals (person at home has more time to prepare meals) will be on the order of 30-50K depending on number of kids + cost of living where you live.
That’s right and If your company covers schooling u pay higher taxes.
For lunch I made spaghetti + penne. Separately I steamed : beef tomato, 3 x 1cm rings of butternut squash, green onions, kelp and salad. Est. cost : $3/$4. No tips.
If you are broke that’s one thing. But young people need jobs in restaurants. Why cheap out if you can afford to support our struggling youth.
It is scary hearing you endorse childlessness for less fortunate people. If you wait to have a child until you can afford it you may not be able to have one. Have children! Struggle! Live to know the joy of a family. When I was young we didn’t know we were poor. The blessing of my grandchildren is all I live for now. Skip kids and what will you live for? A new car? How tragic.
Some are doing their own math. Others are learning the hard way by having the math done for them by predatory credit-card companies, student and auto lenders etc.
We have a child tax credit expansion debated on right now in the senate
Tough call. The credit will go to all the new illegals somehow, although yes as of right now you have to have a social security # and I assume most dont. But I can see Kamala with a presidential override to give it to everyone, so the free loaders win again
Sure they are eligible to work here but they send 80% of their money back home and then get Sect 8 and food stamps and other freebies
Tax the transfers going out of the country…….
meanwhile all the white people that are reproducing, mostly Trump people, they do not want the expansion, but they would benefit
Todays liberals do not even reproduce
The southern border gives us a demographic boost from people with essentially our culture. Trump threatens to send them back (and many malefactors need to go) but he is a businessman. He will cut a deal. We will benefit.
The other half of the globe is not so lucky. Alas, poor Europe! I knew her well, David.
Call it geography or destiny or a quark out of sync: Our beloved America manages to make sugar out of shit all the time. The next couple of years are concerning but if we make it past that we have many centuries of good times ahead.
Your first sentence is no longer true. It was, and as I use to say to everyone, and it aint politically correct, I no longer care, but I use to say at least our illegals are christians. Where Europe is importing a death cult that makes 7 babies per female and 1/3 turn into islamic psychos.
But this is no longer true so your first sentence is wrong. I have read in 3 different articles that now we have illegals from 100 countries coming over the border. This is no longer “a latino issue”. Now the people coming over the border and getting everything for free are from countries likes Nigeria, China, and even other islamic countries.
Have you seen photos of NYC migrants the last 6 months???
And this is all intentional. NGOs flying nigerians to the mexican border. Someone please explain to me how Nigerians and Chinese just to start all of a sudden are crossing the mexican border?????????????
I’m not a racist. I have bi racial kids. But I am sick of this crap and really there is a reason why FJB
We are still the beneficiaries of tens of millions of Hispanic immigrants When I go to Lowes and Home Depot I hear more Spanish than English. Yes, there is epic welfare abuse but that is systemic, not just related to immigration.
I want immigration legal or not at all. But they are here nonetheless, deploring their presence is futile. If natives want to kill themselves with drugs or lie flat, the world still needs roofs patched and asphalted roads. So I learned to love the bomb.
And I am optimistic- because the alternative serves no useful purpose- that the mass influx of non-Hispanic immigrants is temporary. If that turns out to be wrong then we will cross that river when we get to it.
I see the same storm clouds you do. But the sun is up there somewhere beyond them.
Did I say anything bad about latinos in my rant???????
Taxing the money leaving the US is how we pay for the wall.
It’s what the market will bear, until it doesn’t.
When I lived in Houston as a young man in the 1970s, a decent one-bedroom apartment could be had for about $160 per month. Few young people lived with their parents. When I moved to New York, I saw many young people who lived with their parents.
It’s just the new, improved, high tech version of medieval feudalism.
Zoning to keep lower income rental complexes out of my suburb and choosing to not build roads into new areas because of nonsense claims about induced demand are extremely effective at restricting supply and pushing up housing costs.
In most cities, expensive housing is 100% baby boomer NIMBY fallout.
A growing population doesn’t help.
Yes it does. Declining ones don’t help because builders don’t build. No jobs, no new housing. declining economy. Procreate. It’s good for you.
It’s not all boomers. Look at SF (where they desperately need affordable housing) … any time they try to zone for more dense housing in the burbs … the Karen’s (and NBA players) who come out against it are in their 30s and 40s. Throwing all blame on boomers fails to see the real problem.
Part of its name is “Boring” and the content matches the handle.
Croatia is almost 80% of young adults living at home. The same goes for much of the Balkans. Western Euro countries are also high. 20% at best to over 40%.
Most of that however is cultural. The US situation is not. I’ve never met anyone in their late 20’s in the US claim they are living with their parents for any other reason other than economic hardship.
economic hardship over generations becomes cultural.
Exactly!
Not surprised at all with more college graduates Living at home. College and University costs have skyrocketed Along with Student Loans Debt. If you were to dig a little further, a lot of the “non-college graduates” probably still have Student Loans from college they couldn’t afford to finish.
Also, Lots more former (and 1st / 2nd generation) Asian and Europeans now living in the US than previously.
Indian Families, Chinese and Southeast Asian cultures much more likely to live longer with their parents, often until they are married. Especially if they are women.
Add that to housing prices being ridiculously high in many areas because of restrictions on building (NIMBY) isn’t surprising.
Inflation is surely a part but probably only a part because of these other factors.
Children staying with parents. Parents staying with their parents. Children, parents and grandparents. A perfect traditional family. Great for children. No need for baby sitters and day care. Finally, people learning to get along with one another. Great future for the USA
“But…but…but…look at the stock market!”
It is “Stonk Market.”
Likely to be a “Stomp Market” in next couple of years…
Give the rich and wanna-be-rich unlimited access to hundreds of billions of dollars for zero-percent interest in 2006-2020 (and its coming back in 2025) and sure enough they will “borrow” this money and buy up everything in sight: stocks (all time high), bonds (all time high), houses (all time high prices and lowest inventory), businesses (half the NYSE stocks have disappeared), apartment buildings etc. etc., and it is no wonder there is just nowhere left to find somewhere cheap or even modest to live.
Fifty years ago, four young adults didn’t fit in a house with their parents. Now an only and single child is better with his parents. Many times they are divorced and the son is a recipe against loneliness.
Anecdotally, young people’s spending is largely based upon the YOLO/FOMO philosophy. Their attitudes are markedly different from older generations.
Young people aren’t pairing up either. They are also having less sex than previous generations (link below).
So why move out?
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/a-failure-to-launch-why-young-people-are-having-less-sex.html#:~:text=For%20what%20researchers%20say%20is,%27%20and%20grandparents%27%20generations%20did.
Another article related to young folks not having sex.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/
You can live home and still have sex My bedroom was in the basement with an private entrance My mom would shout, do you have a girl down there and I’d lie
I would be willing to sex some of the young women – maybe 10%, tops. Not the ones who look like carnies – which is about half of them.
Less sex Oh my we are truly becoming Japan with diversity
Are you familiar with the Japanese phenomenon of “Hikikomori”? I find it both fascinating and deeply disturbing.
Agreed! The “grass eaters”. Japan is dying out.
Sex always comes with a price. How much do you want to pay? Most males have to learn this.
The biggest price being having your life (job, reputation, and future) at risk by someone who, perhaps is pissed off at you, delivering a #me-too to the gendarmes or HR. Over my lifetime I have see it reproduced a number of time with acquaintances, group leaders with pissed off secretaries or feminist post-docs.
Good way to save money. Except that peeps are hard pressed not to spend what they have. Multi generational wealth is destroyed by abject consumption and divorce.
Got that right
shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations
As a very smart friend of mine who had a well know law firm told me” “if you want justice go to a whore house…if you want to get screwed go to a court house”.
Housing affordability for the younger set is quite the topic these days. I have to ask though has anyone considered the cost of the ever increasing costs built into a dwelling unit caused by regulations, zoning and the code enforcement staff to implement them? I would guess, interestingly enough, that many of these fresh faced young citizens voted for the politicians that paraded these new rules and regulations as they promised a life of unicorns and rainbows in their campaign blather. Me thinks that in many ways the youth have made their own beds and are now disappointed in the results that they have chosen at the election booth and mummy and daddy don’t have the resources to buy them a house as a participation trophy.
The problem with this theory is that the super-majority of politicians and bureaucrats that infest DC have been there for way more than two decades and massive bailouts and entitlement spending have been the order of the day since before any of the youth could vote. Do you think everything bad just happened in the last few years or has it been accumulating for 40+ years?
Boomers are to blame for most of the woes in this country right now. When they finally die off we can hopefully begin to repair the damage. If it isn’t already too late.
because people never had parents before these generations? Because the boomers were in charge of everything, just like the current generations are in charge of everything?
Really ridiculous to blame a large cohort for the effects caused by the ruling class and their instituions, and quite naive to beleive future generations will be unaffected by the ruling class and their institutions.
You should do a bit more research..
I don’t know if you are a millennial or gen Z but as I live in a university town, I never seen a shortage of them buying $10+ cocktails and shots instead of viewing the future and planning. Delayed gratification and accountability being their kryptonite. Having backpacked through nearly 50 countries with a lot of them being like Haiti, Africa and Asia, you have no idea how good you have it here and what opportunities you have if you use self discipline, hard work and foresight.
How many parents live with their adult children – the adult child being the homeowner or head of household? What has the trend been with this living arrangement? Is there something wrong with multigenerational households? Why does everyone need to live on their own?
Since we have a plethora of people with different experiences on this blog, I have a question. It’s bad now, but is it really worse, or the worst ever?
My example, I’ve experienced the good times of the 90’s, and the easy money policies post 9/11 and post Covid. I’ve also experienced the great recession and layoffs. So I’ve seen some good times and bad times, we were able to purchase a home in 2017. 2012 would have been ideal but we weren’t ready.
Now my grandmother, she is great depression era. When I talk to her she still gives the “you don’t know how bad it can be” speech. When we talk about housing being tough, she says when she started her job at Collins Radio she only made $1.40/hr.
What are yall’s opinions on our current state?
Jefe, what is a plethora?
Wow, a Three Amigos reference FTW
How your life turns out depends on a lot of variables. Many of which you have no control over. Such as the year you were born, the country you were born in, your gender, family genetics etc.
All you CAN control is “what you do with your life”. Which means, work hard, acquire the education and skills needed, and take advantage of whatever opportunities life presents you.
And stop wasting your valuable time complaining about things that you cannot control.
She made 1.40 an hour but gasoline and heating oil cost 6 cents a gallon
Depression wages were lower than that, this guy is full of it.
Whatever dude. You could have asked a question instead of attacked.
She was born during the depression. The $1.40/hr was mid 1950’s
Rude!
Agreed!. I grew up on a farm in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. The wage for bailing out a “grease trap” and/or a septic tank with a bucket and rope was $0.40/hr. Picking cotton 12 hours a day was $0.03/pound and priming tobacco was $50/hour. In 1960 bussing tables at the university was $0.75/hour. I never thought of pissing and moaning about my situation. All I thought about was digging my way out of poverty and as Dr. Martin Luther King said (and yes, I met him in 1963 in Birmingham when Bull Connor was in power)…keep your eyes on the prize.
When a person starts out in their young adulthood and have nothing in nature of assets, that is no different then any other period in History.
The difference is that in past there was an expectation that when opportunity presents itself, those willing to sacrifice the present to have in the future, would achieve that aim.
Did not always work out that way, but for those who gave it their everything it was achievable.
In today’s world there is an astounding amount of good information available which was not available in the past so that financial illiteracy is no reason as an obstacle.
There are now a great obstacle as the constant browbeating of those who seek to stand on their own two feet and make a go of it is downright depressing.
That old adage “Seize the Day” still holds true.
Make the day, do it enough you will make the week. Make the week done enough you will make the month and so forth.
Opportunity always presents itself to anyone who is able to recognize it and go. There will always be the difference between those that Talk and those that Do.
The only person who never made a mistake is someone who never did anything.
Sounds reasonable.
One of the main problems I see with younger folks, is people rush out to get college degrees without doing any research on wages or employment placement in that field upon graduation.
I went to into school knowing what I wanted to do, knowing that the program has a history of 100% job placement, where those jobs were and how much they paid. The instructors were very open about all this.
Am still of the mind that doing what one enjoys is more important then any education from a school. If you truly get happiness being of value from your chosen occupation the money part just naturally flows.
Money is just a byproduct of what is inside a persons Mind.
Will not be delving into the metaphysics of it all, but have found this world we call home is a lot more complex then we can understand.
Back in the 60’s, when I was a kid working, the minimum wage was $1/hour. most jobs paid less than minimum. the military paid about 25 cents per hour for draftees. Grandma didn’t know the depression when it was really bad, even the 60’s didn’t sport generous wages for most of us..
mid 70’s the spokane paper reportedly posted the headline
“will the last person out of town please turn off the lights?”
So yes, at times it has been worse
I wonder if the solution in 1940 will be the same solution in 2024? Back in 1940 we had a peacetime draft because we were about to enter a world war. Another world war will certainly pull today’s young adults out of their parents’ houses.
They are not fit to serve, so no worries. Today, 80% are unfit for service and they want to serve.
Why would they want to? Go to war to risk life and limb for a bunch of corrupt politicians and corporations? I served back in the eighties and early nineties when it felt like we still had a purpose in this country. That feeling is gone.
I got the hell out in 75 at the age of 21 Never looked back Bought my first house in 79 half cash with a partner
Turning European, I think we’re turning European, I really think so. (Apologies to the Nordics as well as The Vapors).
I’ve thought about that. Is it turning European, or is it a bigger picture of them being farther along in a timeline of the way societies function, and we catch up? The rise and fall of empires, etc. Seems cyclical in humanity for struggle, rise to power, social issues from lack of struggle, society rots and a new power emerges.
Europeans have always lived at home in larger numbers than we have. Some if it is necessity (costs) and some was simply societal norms.
I remember being in my mid 20s in the early 90s and several co-workers were Italian and Croatian guys my age and they (and their siblings) all still lived at home. When I asked about it, they simply said that was the way things were for Italians/Croatians etc. They lived at home till they married at which time they got their own place with their spouse.
Is everyone around you a total stranger? Or a cyclone ranger?