A record 25.2 million Americans under age 35 lived with their parents in 2025. This translates to nearly one-third of young adults and more than during the pandemic.
This isn’t simply a jobs problem. About 70% of 25- to 34-year-olds living with their parents are employed, suggesting housing costs, debt, and wages are preventing many workers from establishing their own households.
America faced a strikingly similar housing crunch after World War II. That shortage eventually eased through a massive expansion of housing construction, government-backed mortgages, and the rapid development of new suburbs.
For millions of young Americans, getting a job is no longer enough to get them out of their childhood bedroom.
A record 25.2 million adults under age 35 lived with their parents in 2025, according to research from Realtor.com. That's nearly one in three young adults and even exceeds the number recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the data is that many of these adults aren't unemployed.
About 70% of 25- to 34-year-olds living with their parents have jobs. Among 25- to 29-year-olds living at home, 71% are employed, while 68% of 30- to 34-year-olds are working.
That suggests the phenomenon is less about young people failing to find work than about the widening gap between what they earn and what it costs to establish an independent household.
And while the scale of today's problem is remarkable, the United States has been here before.
The cost of moving out keeps rising
Housing is at the center of the problem.
In 2025, the median U.S. home price was $430,000, according to Realtor.com, an increase of 34.4% from 2019. Median asking rent reached $1,673, up 17.9% over the same period.
Realtor.com estimates the country has a housing shortage of roughly four million homes. The problem becomes particularly visible among people well past college age.
About 20.4% of Americans ages 25 to 29 lived with their parents in 2025, nearly six percentage points higher than at the beginning of the century. Among 30- to 34-year-olds, 12.7% lived with their parents, compared with 7.1% in 2000.
Debt compounds the problem. Younger borrowers' debts are more concentrated in student loans, auto loans, and credit cards, leaving monthly obligations that can consume income that might otherwise go toward rent or a down payment.
The result is an unusual economy in which employment and independence have become increasingly disconnected.
It's not necessarily a free ride
Living with Mom and Dad can provide an enormous financial advantage, particularly when the alternative is paying thousands of dollars each month in rent.
But that doesn't mean 20- and 30-somethings living at home are simply banking their salaries.
Realtor.com cites Pew Research Center data showing 72% of young adults living with their parents contribute financially to their households. About 65% help with groceries, utilities, or other expenses, while 46% contribute toward rent or the mortgage.
That can turn multigenerational living into a form of household economic cooperation. Adult children get housing below market cost, while parents receive help paying increasingly expensive taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, and other expenses.
But there are trade-offs.
Parents who expected to downsize after their children left home may postpone the move. Families may need larger homes than they otherwise would. And young adults can find themselves caught in a financial loop: Living at home prevents them from facing unaffordable rent, but contributing to household expenses while paying down debt may make it difficult to save enough to leave.
The implications stretch beyond individual families.
When millions of people delay establishing households, demand for starter homes changes. Marriage and parenthood can also be postponed. Census researchers have found that housing cost burdens are associated with lower odds that young adults reach traditional family-formation milestones.
In other words, a shortage of affordable housing doesn't just affect where people live. It can affect when — or whether — they marry, have children, and begin accumulating housing wealth.
We've seen this movie before
Today's multigenerational housing squeeze has a surprisingly strong historical precedent.
When World War II ended in 1945, millions of service members returned to a country that had built far too little housing during the Great Depression and the war. The National Park Service estimates that the United States was short approximately five million homes in 1945.
The consequences sound remarkably contemporary.
Roughly six million Americans squeezed in with relatives or friends, according to an account published by Yale University Press, while others resorted to garages, attics, barns, Quonset huts, and other makeshift accommodations.
President Harry Truman described millions of families sharing homes as the nation's housing shortage remained acute, according to a Congressional Research Service history of federal housing policy.
The postwar crisis and today's problem aren't identical. The 1940s shortage was intensified by years of extremely low construction during the Depression and war, followed by millions of servicemen returning within a relatively short period.
But the underlying economic mechanism is familiar: The country had more people ready to form households than it had suitable, affordable homes for them. So young families doubled up.
How America got out of it
The postwar housing crisis didn't disappear because Americans suddenly became wealthier or because returning veterans simply waited long enough. America built its way out.
The federal government helped stimulate construction and homeownership, while the GI Bill provided eligible veterans access to favorable government-backed mortgages. The Federal Housing Administration also helped expand mortgage financing.
Congress followed with the Housing Act of 1949, which declared a national goal of providing a decent home and suitable living environment for American families. Among other measures, the law authorized support for 810,000 public housing units over six years and expanded federal mortgage insurance designed to promote construction and homeownership.
Private builders simultaneously revolutionized the way homes were produced.
Developments such as Levittown on Long Island applied mass-production techniques to housing. Rather than constructing one customized home at a time, builders standardized designs and divided construction into specialized tasks.
The result was dramatically faster production of relatively small, comparatively affordable homes. Levittown became one model for an enormous suburban building boom that spread across the country.