More People Living With Family Amid High Unemployment, Census Shows

By Phil Izzo of the Wall Street Journal

More people are living with family amid high unemployment rates and a slow economy, but while the phenomenon is keeping the poverty rate lower, it has wider negative economic consequences.

In a presentation as part of its wider report on income, poverty and health insurance, the Census Bureau noted a big jump in the number of individuals and families doubling up. Census says 69.2 million, or 30%, were doubled-up in 2011, up from 61.7 million adults, or 27.7%, in 2007. “Doubled-up” households include at least one person 18 or older who isn’t enrolled in school and isn’t the householder, spouse or cohabiting partner of the householder.

Much of the increase comes from young people, ages 25-34, living with their parents. Some 5.9 million, or 14.2% of 25-to-34 year olds, lived with their parents in 2011, up from 4.7 million before the recession.

“These young adults who lived with their parents had an official poverty rate of only 8.4%, since the income of their entire family is compared with the poverty threshold,” David Johnson chief of the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division at the U.S. Census Bureau said. “If their poverty status were determined by their own income, 45.3% would have had income falling below the poverty threshold for a single person under age 65.”

Fewer households means fewer consumers for businesses desperate for demand. (You don’t need to buy a new TV if you can just use mom and dad’s.) At the same time, it continues to drag on a housing market that needs to burn off excess supply.

Read the entire post here.

Read more:

Economists React: Gauging Impact of Obama Jobs Proposal

Unemployment Benefits’ Effect on Jobless Rate

Congress Returns To A Heap Of Anti-Corruption Bills

Comments

[sonnybrakes]

06:18 AM on 09/15/2011

If it's good enough for corporations, to cut their costs and throw people out of work, then it's got to be good enough for families to work together and ween themselves off of the products these same corporations are producing.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

06:15 PM on 09/14/2011

Family is important. Multigenerational family dwellings can be a pretty positive experience.

[sugarcreekchile]

04:01 PM on 09/14/2011

If a family gets along, sometimes it makes sense to live together. My youngest son moved back in with me at 25 after he completed 5 years of military service. He's going to college on the GI bill, gets a government housing allowance from the bill, a disability check for a service-connected injury and unemployment benefits. As a widow, I like having someone else in the house.

He's not using mom's stuff. He brought some furniture and electronics home with him that he had in a his apartment when in the military. He tossed out the childhood furniture in his bedroom and took over the spare room adjoining his as a man cave that he bought den furniture for. He pays for his cellphone, cable internet for the house, buys his own groceries and pays me the difference in the utility costs that his being here adds to the bills.

He could afford his own place but why should he pay apartment rent when his area is on the opposite side of the house from mine and some days we barely see each other? He has a girlfriend who owns her own house but he doesn't care for the area it's in. He's saving money for a home when he's out of college and has talked about building his own home on the back of my large property since he likes our neighborhood. Unemployment is hurting the economy not adult children, some who'd otherwise be homeless, living with parents.

[Nic the wonder puppy]

02:26 PM on 09/14/2011

This is my world, I live with humans

[KarlaElisa]

12:07 PM on 09/14/2011

"Fewer households means fewer consumers for businesses desperate for demand."

Sob. Poor economy. Poor giant businesses unable to peddle their plastic trash.

[MayorsRevenge]

11:45 AM on 09/14/2011

By all means live with mom and save. Save so you can live debt free. Save to be free. I many states you cannot walk away from a mortgage if you are underwater so you mint be stuck with a theory year commitment in a house that is worth little which could destroy your savings.

Take on no debt! Pay off existing debt and save.

[frank day]

12:15 PM on 09/14/2011

That's been my message to my children.

I'd like to see them save enough by age 30 to buy a home with cash.

[Papa Swamp]

11:04 AM on 09/14/2011

Amazing the US survived since families used to live together in one house. It only makes sense to pool resources in bad economic times. This will not change until the US changes policies that have made it more attractive to ship jobs overseas. The trade deals in place and the new ones coming up are about as anti-US worker as they get.

[frank day]

11:15 AM on 09/14/2011

I agree. Study any piece of legislation actually getting passed and you'll find that

they almost always funnel more money into the pockets of corporations.

[KarlaElisa]

12:07 PM on 09/14/2011

probably because those same corps write the legislation.

[Binckeslaw]

09:12 AM on 09/14/2011

The following can be found in US Code, Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter 2, Section 151 of the Natinal Labor Relations Act (1935)

"The inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract, and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association substantially burdens and affects the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and the purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries........

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantia­l obstructio­ns to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructio­ns when they have occurred by encouragin­g the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of associatio­n, self-organ­ization, and designatio­n of representa­tives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiatin­g the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection."

[whodo1952]

09:52 AM on 09/14/2011

Since commerce is the snake that powers the economy, and the bogus concept of money totally dissolves it's relativity when equally / balanced, it is imperative that we, as a commercially based society, believe in santa claus, the easter bunny and the fashion houses which gear and moderate the flow / floe.
We are the cogs of the driving mechanism of greed.
When our purchasing power wanes, our quality of life in a commercially based society is effected and affected.
Perhaps being flung into a simpler concept of sharing and cooperation will allow us a more equally / balanced view of our attitudes and behaviors.
Cooperation always, in all ways, goes hand in hand with an equally / balanced perspective in physics.

[KarlaElisa]

12:10 PM on 09/14/2011

read an interesting quote from bill mckibben yesterday:

"Cheap fossil fuels made us the first humans to live with absolutely no need of our neighbors".

What we have is a cultural problem and I agree...a simpler concept of sharing and cooperation would be beneficial.

[jdbond]

09:10 AM on 09/14/2011

Young adults should learn to save. They cannot "afford" to live the life of their parents. Their parents were living large on borrowed money. Save...save.

[Papa Swamp]

11:06 AM on 09/14/2011

Why save? One puts money in the banks and only get 0.2% return (if lucky) BUT the banks can leverage that money 10x's and loan it out at 5-28%….the system is rigged against the individual.

[frank day]

11:16 AM on 09/14/2011

Indeed, from cradle to the grave.

We are fleeced at every stage.

[Yam716]

11:20 AM on 09/14/2011

We can go back to keeping money in our mattresses!

[zatgy]

09:02 AM on 09/14/2011

It's no wonder grown up children are sometimes living with parents. I've noticed prices continue to climb especially on food. How can young adults live on their own with prices being what they are?
Also, if wages increase it seems prices will increase to take advantage of the higher wage. How are people suppose to increase their standard of living?

[spinotter11]

09:24 AM on 09/14/2011

I have news for you - the entire human population is going to see a big drop in living standards very soon.

[wsdave]

11:22 AM on 09/14/2011

It will be far worse for the middle class: The poor are already used to being poor, while the middle has VERY far to fall.

[yoozum]

12:12 PM on 09/14/2011

If fluctuations in food prices are the deciding factor between living on your own and moving back in with your parents, you probably shouldn't be living on your own in the first place.

[dadw5boys]

08:56 AM on 09/14/2011

Seems like Reagan rasing the Retirement Age backfired .
Now so many old people remain in the job while young people can't get one.

[SIMPLICIMUSS]

12:24 PM on 09/14/2011

Since Jan .1 ,2011, ten thosand Baby Boomers have been retiring every day. The Economy should have produced 0ver two million new jobs. Our politcians have things so scrooood up, that nobody is hiring. There is so much uncertainty , how can you blame them.?

[usorthem3]

08:48 AM on 09/14/2011

Welcome to the product of Reaganomics and "trickle down".

[spinotter11]

09:25 AM on 09/14/2011

Where living with less can actually be enjoyable if you play your cards right.

[Dan1902]

08:00 AM on 09/14/2011

And living in a box under a bridge would be good for the economy!?!?

[spinotter11]

09:25 AM on 09/14/2011

The box makers?

[Schoolgirl666]

09:34 AM on 09/14/2011

at least someone got a new refrigerator!!!

[gravescanada]

07:40 AM on 09/14/2011

I remember growing up in the late 70's early 80's. My Grandparents lived with my Great Grandparents. They shared a home. It worked for them. My Mother was the second oldest of 9 siblings. The younger 7 still lived at home. I have seen families here in Canada come from overseas. They purchase a home, which has Father, Mother, Grandfather, Grandmother, and several children all working and paying off the house in as little as 5 years. We have lost the idea that family helps family without expecting anything in return. My daughter is 20, she lives at home. She is not depressed, she helps with expenses, and recently got an apprenticeship. Now, if she choses to move out in a few years, that is her choice, but as far as I am concerned, she can stay as long as she likes. I was 18 and given a choice, the street or join the army. I would NEVER do that to one of my children. In the 80's and 90's we became a country of greed, of I have to have MINE NOW. Well, my parents are now talking about moving in with our family. I welcome them. What a joy to have my mother there to be a guiding light to my 13 year old and 16 year old. And the wisdome of my father, for all three girls. The will be able to live with us at a fraction of the cost of living by themselves.

[Gudrun]

08:42 AM on 09/14/2011

There is a lot in what you say. My parents' home was such that I would never have considered staying with them past the age of 17. I'm sort of glad to see that young adults today are good enough friends with their parents to make a home with them, for however long that has to be. Sometimes we just have to take things as they come.

[spinotter11]

09:30 AM on 09/14/2011

We were gently but firmly nudged out of the family nest at the proper time. There was never any expectation that any of the four siblings would stay, nor were we welcome afterwards for anything but a flying visit. That was my family' s take on independence. It worked out pretty well in the end. We had no choice. But Gudrun, I'm curious why you say your parents' home was not an option for you. Just curious.

[wsdave]

11:25 AM on 09/14/2011

I'm actually building a bedroom specifically for my mother to move into.

[mjk0259]

05:45 AM on 09/14/2011

At the salaries that most college graduates are getting, if they are lucky enough to find a job, there's no way they can afford a small apartment on their own where I live in the NYC area even if they don't buy health insurance. I guess real estate/apartment rental prices are going to have to go down another 75% as the older people die off. Or we'll accomplish the equivalent with inflation.