Young Americans were told that good grades would unlock a six-figure salary, starter apartment, and independence from their parents. But now, entry-level professionals are clinging to their childhood bedrooms and pillaging their family fridges as more are extending their stay than ever before.
A record 25.2 million U.S. adults under the age of 35 lived with their parents in 2025—representing about one in three young adults—according to a recent report from Reatlor.com.
That’s even higher than the pandemic-era surge, when many budding professionals returned home to ride out the pandemic with their loved ones.
However, it doesn’t mean that Gen Zers and young millennials are jobless and mooching off their family resources. In fact, around 70% of 25 to 34-year-olds who still live at home with their parents are actually employed, according to the report.
Instead of kicking back, most workers are delaying their flight from the nest thanks to an affordability crisis pinching the wallets of everyday Americans. And as the lowest professionals on the corporate totem pole, their rock-bottom salaries, job instability, and lack of savings may be keeping them home.
“The growth [of young generations living at home] is coming from working adults, not people waiting to find jobs,” Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com and author of the report, said in the study. “Something about their income level, debt load, or the cost of housing in their market is keeping them home despite steady employment.”
America’s affordability crisis is crushing the independence of young workers
Young professionals are up against a stormy transition into adult life: entry-level jobs are disappearing, wage bumps are stagnating, and cost-of-living is soaring. Now, it’s forced Gen Z into a professional reality of “stress and pressure and chaos” that their baby boomer parents wouldn’t even comprehend, according to podcaster Mel Robbins. And the financial burden is extending beyond the young workers clamoring for independence.
Around 64% of parents with Gen Z children aged 18 to 28 said that their adult kids still rely on them for money, housing, or other financial support, according to a 2026 survey from Wells Fargo. And their continued support has led to a money pinch for many, as 56% reported that assisting their grown-up offspring is straining their own finances. However, they’re actually helping cover essential living expenses rather than picking up the tab on extravagant getaways.
“[Adult Gen Z] kids who are receiving the financial support are really in this perfect storm,” Emily Irwin, head of private wealth planning at Wells Fargo, told Fortune earlier this year. “They’re feeling uncertain about their career, their profession, and the stability of receiving a paycheck.”
One of the financial biggest hurdles keeping young workers at home is the sky-high cost of housing.
In 2025, the median American home price was $430,000, up 34.4% from 2019, according to the Realtor.com report. Meanwhile, average monthly rent shot up by 17.9% to $1,673. And a housing shortage of roughly 4 million residents is only exacerbating the issue. Young generations are now crossing a “threshold at which they begin to give up on [buying a home] entirely,” university researchers Seung Hyeong Lee and Younggeun Yoo found.
Other daily expenses are sky-rocketing, too. Cash-strapped young workers watched the price of a pound of ground beef hit a record $6.90 per pound last month, up 19% from a year ago. Orange juice prices skyrocketed 21% between January 2025 and February this year, and sandwich bread got 4.3% more expensive. Plus, they have less income to work with in footing the bill. Despite early-career being the prime time to grow earnings, income growth for 25 to 29-year-olds slowed to 5.2% in late 2025, one of the lowest levels since 2011 when JPMorganChase Institute began collecting data.
Gen Z and young millennials may be leveraging the safety net of their families, but most aren’t simply coasting off the bank of mom and dad.
Around 72% of young adults who live with their parents say they contribute financially to the household in some sort of way, according to the 2024 data from Pew. About 46% contribute toward rent or the mortgage, while 65% put in money towards the family groceries, utilities, or other household expenses.
