It’s official: Millennials really are the Mom’s Basement generation.
A new Pew analysis shows that adults 18 to 34 are now more likely to be living with their folks than in their own home with a spouse or partner. That hasn’t been the case in 130 years — and it’s cause for concern.
True, the share of couples living together has been dipping for a while. It peaked at 62 percent around 1960, Pew says, when just 20 percent of young adults lived with Mom and Dad. By 2014, 32.1 percent lived at home, a bit more than the 31.6 percent who lived with a partner.
One obvious explanation: People are putting off marriage until later in life — or skipping it altogether. Pew has estimated that as many as one of every four young adults may never marry.
Single motherhood has also grown — troubling in itself, because abundant other research links marriage to better economic prospects for kids.
But it’s impossible to ignore the role the economy has played in keeping young adults, especially men, in the cellar. The share of young men with jobs, says Pew, peaked at 84 percent in 1960 but plunged to just 71 percent by 2014.
In particular, Obamanomics has taken its toll: “Given the weak job opportunities facing young adults, living at home was part of the private safety net,” writes Pew researcher Richard Fry.
Indeed, under President Obama, America hasn’t seen a single year with growth of 3 percent or more. Poverty’s up, median income’s down. More folks (46 million) are on food stamps. More have given up on jobs and quit looking.
Sure, life with Mom and Dad may not be the worst thing in the world. But when grown kids are at home because they can’t find work, it means they’re falling short of their economic potential. In fact, the whole nation’s falling short.
The next prez has to juice the economy big-time. That would do America and its kids (and their folks!) a huge service.