Percentage of parents financially supporting adult children reaches 3-year high | Hacker News Reader

Percentage of parents financially supporting adult children reaches 3-year high

savings.com

35 pointswalterbell41 comments

This is a really bad sign if it's consistent support.

I understand a few hundred during a rough patch, but you don't grow up until you have to balance a check book.

The cost of living has become absurdly bad. Even factoring in inflation my first apartment is twice as expensive now. You end up seeing young adults unable to leave very crappy situations.

Dating in LA was just hearing people in their late 20s and early 30s complain about their parents for hours.

Genuine question that may come across as snark, but I promise it's not!

"you don't grow up until you have to balance a check book."

Is that just shorthand for "be properly aware your own budget and finances" or are there literally still enough people using check (cheque as I might write) books in the US that this is still a literal task people learn.

Yes there are people still writing checks in the US. I pay my rent by check (paying by bank transfer costs a fee which I refuse to pay).

However I have never used the balance recording part of the checkbook and I think it's completely unnecessary if you know how to operate a computer.

There are likely some older people who still balance their checkbooks but I never was explicitly taught to do it. Instead I see it used as a kind of metaphor for personal budgeting in general.

Agreed. I was taught (and forced to) balance my checkbook as a youth, but starting around 2006 when I switched to a bank with a website/portal it became essentially busy work. I would still probably recommend doing it (or an equivalent personal tracking) if you run balances near zero so you don't overdraw/overdraft, but for most people it's only a 30 second exercise to pull up the website or app and check your balance. If you're worried about bank errors then maybe self-balancing might be worth it, but that's not something I worry about and even if I did I don't expect my personal balance to be accepted as any sort of evidence.

Since it became possible to deposit a cheque by photographing it from a banking app, there are also fewer surprises from the other side: the busy plumber might not find time to drive to the bank during opening hours, but will pay in any cheques they receive the same day through the app.

(From what I remember of my parents discussing this, they would be annoyed if someone they'd paid by cheque didn't deposit it promptly. This was probably before online banking, but when they could conveniently check their balance at an ATM in most supermarkets.)

I'm 26 from California, I have never had a single occasion to write a check in my life. Neither have any of my peers to my knowledge, but it naturally doesn't come up a lot.

To pay for things, you obviously must use something.

What you likely do not realize is there are additional protections inherent with checks that you likely do not have with what you are using.

Payment systems often force you to pay a percentage of the total as a fee, just like using your ATM card at a out of network ATM will impose a fee both at the ATM, but on your banks side as well.

That's more than you would pay than if you provided a check.

There are also many things inherent in the processes involving cashing checks that protect you from various forms of fraud, and the documentation you generate (with carbon copies) can be used in court to support claims as well when bad actors lie.

By utilizing something else because its convenient, you effectively sign away protections you didn't know you had.

Not knowing the how's and why's, and not being taught, becomes detrimental to your future without you even realizing it.

I'm in my early 40s; we very occasionally have to still write checks. Most recently, it's how we've paid for house repairs that were too expensive to feel comfortable paying in cash for.

I'm 42 and in the last 10 years, I have written two checks: One to a dentist who didn't have an online billing portal, and one to a car wrapping business who charged an extra 3% to pay with a credit card.

Even the $6,000 water main replacement and $24,000 roof replacement allowed me to pay through ACH online and so I didn't have to write a physical check.

EDIT: Actually, 10 years would include the last few months I lived in an apartment. I paid my rent with a physical check back then. If I lived in an apartment today, if they accepted online payments of some sort without an extra fee, I'd do that.

It's a figure of speech. I don't literally write checks.

But getting my first apartment at 19 was definitely a great experience. I didn't have my parents paying my rent. Either I was going to figure it out or get evicted a 3rd time.

It was much easier back than, my rent was around 40% of a minimum wage income. Now the same apartment is closer to 70%.

in Santa Barbara, California.. working professionals with credentials and a college degree cannot afford (or find?) an ordinary rental unit. The source of that is a news article that said they may not be able to bring newly graduated doctors or young police to their city.

To be abundantly clear, this was a dingy crummy apartment in a rough neighborhood. For the first few months I lived there I literally would hide my monitor whenever I left the house.

After a while, I grew to love it. I left the monitor out because I was tired of being afraid all the time, I hugged the floor since it meant the next eviction would be up to me.

I have so many fond memories of 2009/2010 KTown, such a great place to live on a budget.

It's gone now, you need a six-figure income to live there like anywhere else in Los Angeles

Its required knowledge for financial literacy.

Its more than just balancing the check book. The reason's behind why you do it are many. One is in creating a documentation path of evidence you can fall back to if there are any discrepancies, which do happen both as mistakes/errors as well as maliciously.

Rare as they may be, having a teller add an extra 0 to the end of a $100 payment when processing is enough for most people to find out the hard way why you need to do these things a certain way.

If the bank refuses to correct the issue, you can take them to small claims court and use your documentation as evidence in support along with other evidence such as invoices, etc. Even memorializing something and sending a copy to the person for their documentation can be considered implicit acceptance when they do not respond which bad actors often will not.

If you don't have this, its your word versus theirs. A he-said she-said, and there are presumptions in law that may force you to pay if you do not know.

Things like failing to dispute amounts/demands for something owed within a certain period of time, may make you liable for remedying a non-existent credit/debt when it goes before a judge.

It is consistent support, and it is getting worse, and the sentiment brokers are making it even worse by preventing people from talking about it by echo chambering most people.

In systems theory we call this a positive feedback system, and they are prone to runaway failures. The environment today that has been created is disadvantaged, and will get worse because of regulatory capture and lack of representation.

Dating largely isn't happening because any eating out costs a large fraction of your rent, which is also high, and jobs are few and far between.

Thomas Paine wrote about systems like this where they decree for all time that something must be. He called it dead men ruling, and that is the system we have today, and its stagnated for a generation (20 years), and is now coming undone.

The elements of slavery without calling it that. A thing is what it does. The ugly truth is past generations broke the generational contract, raised their children to be slaves to fuel a comfy life, and withheld the benefits of past generations which they received.

They have deluded and blinded themselves to the point where they are blind and think its the children, when they should be thinking; I along with everyone else allowed this to happen and supported it.

It's engineered austerity. Like the shift from a middle class household needing one income to needing two. It's another step in the raiding of the lower and middle classes.

They almost make it sound like it was a bad thing. What's wrong about people keeping at least the minimum of an "extended family" thing?

The most likely age to receive an inheritance is about 60.

At 60 an inheritance doesn’t move the needle much.

The same “ball of funds” (even adjusted backwards for investment returns, etc) at 30 would probably have made a bigger impact - earlier house, better school district for the kids, etc.

Being “forced” to support adult children likely indicates issues with society of some sort, but in general, that support well-done and intentional, can be a great leg-up in the world.

The big problem is that it's probably not possible to distinguish between "forced" (by circumstances) or "by own choice". I suspect that it's a similar problem as the impossibility to disentangle supply and demand from observed transactions and prices.

Historically the primary and often almost only reliable way of obtaining any kind of meaningful wealth was through inheritance inheriting it. So such behavior was completely standard and expected (it’s much easier to justify it if your parents inherited most of their wealth as well).

In a way that seems like an inseparable part of highly stable/stagnant societies.

The things that broke the wheel back in the 1800s and 1900s was very rapid technological progress and several massive wars leading to societal collapse across much of the world

But today, inheritance still plays a very small part compared to what it was even 40 years ago.

The easiest way to get billions is still inheritance.

But almost anyone can get into the low millions by diligently working and saving ($20/hr for 30 years is 1.2m after all).

And all you need to do is not spend any of that $1.2m on food and rent in the meantime!

> At 60 an inheritance doesn’t move the needle much.

My in-laws gave my me and my wife about $20,000 to help with the down payment on our house when we were 35. They said to consider it an advance of our inheritance for that exact reason. $20K at that time would make a lot more of a difference to us than $20K + the interest it would have earned in 20-30 years.

There's a difference between living with your family because you choose to, and being unable to afford to live on your own without your family's assistance.

It's a bad thing if you can't move out...ever and with inflation the way it is, this is the case for more and more of the young. Think about inflation vs wage and you'll see wages have not matched inflation. Personally and culturally, I recommend staying at home. Just a couple of years ago, I was working for a so-called tech company that was paying just 19/hr for their support staff. Fast food workers make more than that now.

My sibling and I are about 6 years apart and the difference is astounding. They have no income, savings, and are still living with my parents. I have several kids, own my home, and have a large emergency fund. I still haven’t quite figured out what had created such a large difference.

I'm not being snarky here but, really?

>Higher wages

>Much higher purchasing power

>Low unemployment

>A community around pushing you to do better instead of drugging, mutilating or killing yourself

And plenty of other more granular reasons.

Would love to hear more about this "mutilation" ....

In six years? We're talking pre-COVID graduations for both of us. I also started out making $1,200 a month in the U.S military. I chose the military precisely because I grew up in a very poor area where drug use and gang killings were rampant (my parents moved into a relatively affluent neighborhood shortly after I left).

So, your bullet points don't really describe my experience.

How about percent of adult children supporting parents?

Do you count social security in this?

No, because that's not a useful statistic in the context being discussed.

The number of children directly supporting parents has more meaning especially when looking at economic data.

Why? Social security is young supporting the old.

Yes, 100% of employed workers supporting 100% of persons older than 65.

These statistics are invariant with respect to the economy.

Parents as the default safety net isn't going to scale to future generations

Hard to imagine Gen-Z parents have the wealth to do the same for their children

Why not? Boomers -> millennials will be the largest transfer of wealth in human history. No reason why Gen-Z won't have their own wealth to transfer.

* End of ZIRP

* Prior gen saw a massive rise in asset value

* Rise of gig economy that isn't conducive to career progression

* Outsourcing

* Covid

* Unable to get on to property ladder

* Uni stopped being a reliable golden ticket

* Junior roles requiring X years experience

* Fake job listing

...lots of things stacked against current generations that prior generations didn't need to deal with

> * Junior roles requiring X years of experience

Don't forget the we want a person with 10 years of experience in X language.

Designer of said language applies, and is turned down for not having sufficient experience, the language has only been in existence at that point for 6 or 8 years.....

Needless to say, the world today is an aggregate of the decisions made by past generations, and choices are done purposefully. The world we see is the world their actions show they wanted, and its a disadvantaged hellscape for the children based in systems described by Thomas Paine as dead men ruling, for all time.

Many of these things, the consequences were known about well in advance, they still chose to move forward despite knowing those consequences.

Ponzi systems are with front-loaded benefits allowing a comfy life, and as the dynamics enter the final stages, slavery and annihilation for your children.

All you need to do is tacitly accept it by not doing anything to stop it. Such complacency. Its so very slothful. It's enough to make the brain tremble when you realize the truth among the many lies.

NY Mag just had a series on this, looking at how many NYers are able to work cool but low-paying jobs, buy property, start businesses by funding from their parents:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/boomer-generation-we...

Non-paywall link: https://archive.is/HpGyP

giant amounts of gray non-taxed incomes in New York IMO

Heh, that very much matches my personal experience. So many younger adults in New York do seem to have this help. I've been amazed at how much people that I know aren't making a ton of money are able to travel, buy luxurious cars, rent upscale apartments, etc. It finally clicked for me one night at a NY comedy club when I got to talking to a group in this boat that were unusually honest about the situation. I don't begrudge them (after all life is a crapshoot and you can't help to whom you are born) but I do wish it was a little more common to be honest about it. I have friends that really feel like failures because they can't possibly "keep up" with some of their colleagues that do the same jobs.

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