For First Time In 130 Years, More Young Adults Live With Parents Than With Partners 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Education Images/UIG via Getty Images Education Images/UIG via Getty Images 
 
 For the first time in more than 130 years, Americans ages 18-34 are more likely to live with their parents than in any other living situation, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center. 
 
 In that age group, 32.1 percent of people live in their parents' house, while 31.6 live with a spouse or partner in their own homes and 14 percent live alone, as single parents or in a home with roommates or renters. The rest live with another family member, a nonfamily member or in group-living situations such as a college dorm or prison. 
 
 toggle caption Pew Research Center/NPR 
 
 Pew notes that this is not a record high percentage for the number of young people living at home — in 1940, for instance, approximately 35 percent of people in that age range lived at home. 
 
 But back then, living with a spouse or partner was even more popular than that. Today not so: More people choose an alternative living situation, and out of the crowded field of choices, life with Mom and/or Dad has become the top pick for millennials. 
 
 Well — some millennials. Men, for starters. 
 
 American men ages 18-34 live with their parents 35 percent of the time, and with a spouse or partner 28 percent of the time. For women, the numbers are nearly reversed; 35 percent live with a partner, while 29 percent live with their parents. 
 
 Living with mom or dad: More common for sons than daughters https://t.co/7SxlYSwEBi pic.twitter.com/gQTFUJZKiU — Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) May 24, 2016 
 
 Less educated young adults are also more likely to live with their parents than are their college-educated counterparts — no surprise, Pew notes, given the financial prospects in today's economy. 
 
 Black and Hispanic young people, compared with white people, are in the same situation. 
 
 For black people in particular, the "new" milestone isn't so new at all. Black young adults have been more likely to live with their parents than in any other situation since 1980. Today, 36 percent of black millennials live with their parents, while 17 percent live with a spouse or partner. 
 
 Meanwhile, taken as a whole, women, white people, Asian/Pacific Islanders and people with bachelor's degrees are still more likely to live with spouses or partners than with their parents. 
 
 But the overall trend is the same for every demographic group — living with parents is increasingly common. 
 
 (Young Americans are still less likely to live with their parents than their southern European friends. In Macedonia, more than 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds reportedly live at home, Pew says.) 
 
 For many millennials, Pew's conclusions might seem both unsurprising and easy to explain: The Great Recession happened, of course! 
 
 But the rise in the number of young adults living at home started before the economic crash — and so did the possible contributing factors. Male unemployment has been on the rise for decades, Pew says. Even those who have jobs are making less than they would have in their parents' day — for young men, Pew notes, inflation-adjusted wages have been falling since 1970. 
 
 And then fewer young people are married than in decades past. Even accounting for the increased popularity of cohabitation, there are just fewer paired-up 20-somethings and 30-somethings than there used to be. 
 
 In general, the study shows how dramatically the living situations of 18- to 34-year-olds have changed since 1880, when the data begin. 
 
 Living alone, as a single parent, or with roommates — once a rarity — is now the choice of 14 percent of people in that age group. And a full 25 percent of young men are now living with other family, nonfamily or group quarters. 
 
 Male prosperity rose steadily, and more and more men left the nest — until the '60s and '70s, when wages started to drop and more men stayed home. 
 
 And women? For decades women who worked were more likely to live with their parents than with a partner or spouse — because wives were discouraged from having jobs, per Pew's straightforward interpretation. 
 
 But now more and more young women have jobs, and it's unemployed women who are more likely to live with their parents. And yet, even as female prosperity rose, so did the number of young women living at home. 
 
 Pew speculated it might because of men's lower earnings keeping women from marrying and moving out. Seem plausible? The question might make for a fruitful conversation in households across America tonight ... just ask Mom to pass the peas and the theories. ||||| Members of the graduating class at the Savannah College of Art and Design commencement in Atlanta. For the first time on record, living with parents is now the most common arrangement for Americans age 18 to 34. (John Amis/ASSOCIATED PRESS) 
 
 It’s true: Kids Today are more dependent on their parents than Kids Yesterday. 
 
 At least when it comes to housing. 
 
 Nearly a third of Americans age 18 to 34 were living with their parents in 2014, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center. That’s the highest share since the Great Depression. 
 
 It was also the first time since at least 1880 that young adults were more likely to live in their parents’ homes than in their own households with a spouse or other romantic partner. 
 
 Crusty old pundits will surely declare this a sign of millennials’ failure to launch. They will bemoan young people’s insistence on mooching off of beleaguered boomer parents rather than going into the real world and getting their own grown-up jobs, spouses and mortgages. Millennial basement-dwelling — along with millennial musical tastes, millennial slang and millennial fashions — is thus clear evidence of a generation-wide crisis of character. 
 
 The millennial generation is now the largest, most ethnically diverse generation in American history. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post) 
 
 But there are a few reasons all this re-nesting may not be such a bad thing. 
 
 For one, consider the macroeconomic and social conditions that today’s young adults face. 
 
 Their unemployment (and underemployment) rates remain relatively high, as do their student debt burdens. Their wages have stagnated. 
 
 Young adults want to live on their own and aspire to purchase homes. But homeownership remains far out of their reach. National home prices today are not so far below their pre-recession peaks, with some metro areas even reaching all-time highs. 
 
 Meanwhile, rents, too, have skyrocketed, fast outpacing inflation. 
 
 Young people are also living with their parents in higher numbers in part because they’re delaying marriage. This is a consequence of both precarious job prospects and a growing perception that financial security is a prerequisite to tying the knot — which the vast majority of singles say they still very much want to do. 
 
 In this context, swallowing their pride and living above the family garage rather than frittering away money on rent looks rather financially prudent. 
 
 Second, the growth of intergenerational households shouldn’t be so alarming given how common this living arrangement is everywhere else in the developed world. In fact, the share of young adults here who live with their folks is still relatively low compared with the rate in many of our peer countries. 
 
 According to a recent census survey, 42 percent of Canadian adults age 20 to 29 live in their parents’ homes. Across the European Union, nearly half of young adults age 18 to 34 live with their parents. In Japan, about half of unmarried 20-to-34-year-olds (dubbed “parasite singles”) live with their parents, too. 
 
 But, you cry: American exceptionalism! We don’t want to be like everyone else! 
 
 It’s not clear, though, why a society in which young singles live on their own is more desirable than one in which the same demographic errs on the side of doubling up with relatives. This norm is especially puzzling in the United States, where for decades the tax code has incentivized home buyers to purchase as much house as possible, whether or not they need the space. 
 
 Perhaps it makes sense to use the housing stock we already have more efficiently, rather than insisting that young people move out as part of some artificial adulthood milestone. 
 
 Of course, boomers may object to bunking up with their boomeranging offspring, even on occasions when they do have ample space. 
 
 Well, boohoo. 
 
 Today’s boomers have benefited for decades from huge public intergenerational transfers of wealth. Is it really so much to ask that they make some much smaller private intergenerational transfers to their own children? 
 
 The public infrastructure that boomers have enjoyed all their lives was largely built by their elders. Those who went to college paid very low tuition and received much more generous public subsidies for their schooling. For decades they have paid tax rates far too low to actually fund the government services they receive. They have racked up trillions in federal debt and handed the tab to their kids. 
 
 As boomers increasingly age into Medicare eligibility, those intergenerational transfers will further balloon. 
 
 Take a two-earner couple who worked every year of their adult lives, with both spouses receiving the average wage until turning 65 and retiring last year. For every $1 that they paid into the Medicare system, they will receive $3 back in benefits, according to estimates from the Urban Institute. 
 
 Guess who has to pay the difference? Yup. Their good-for-nothin’, basement-dwelling, parasitic boomerang kids. 
 
 In this light, the return home of young adults should be seen less as an act of morally bankrupt mooching and more as a step toward balancing the intergenerational ledger.
– The Pew Research Center is out with an interesting stat: More people ages 18 to 34 are living with their parents than with romantic partners—the first time that's happened in more than 130 years, which is when the data starts, notes NPR. At the Washington Post, Catherine Rampell runs through some of the reasons, including high unemployment among the young, student debt, rising home prices and rents, and stagnant wages. Considering all that, it's "rather financially prudent" for millennials to stay with mom and dad longer, a situation that's not all that unusual in the rest of the world, she writes. But her bigger message is for those "crusty" baby boomers complaining about a lack of character in the younger set: "Well, boohoo." "Today’s boomers have benefited for decades from huge public intergenerational transfers of wealth," writes Rampell. "Is it really so much to ask that they make some much smaller private intergenerational transfers to their own children?" They've paid low tuition and too-low taxes for the services they get back, and they'll hand over an enormous public debt. Plus, today's millennials will have to make up for their out-of-whack Medicare benefits. "In this light, the return home of young adults should be seen less as an act of morally bankrupt mooching and more as a step toward balancing the intergenerational ledger." Click for the full column.