Nearly a Third of Millennials Are Getting Financial Help. NewsWire

NewsWire: 5/28/21

• Almost a third (29%) of Millennials are receiving financial help from friends or family members, mostly from their parents or parents-in-law. This is compared to a mere 5% of Boomers and Silent, according to a new study. (Society of Actuaries)
• NH: This study, conducted in January, is packed with data about Americans’ financial behaviors and their attitudes towards retirement. Many of these topics have been covered by other sources--for instance, how the pandemic has impacted people’s finances (see “Covid-19 Sets Back Americans’ Retirement Plans”) and employment.
• The most interesting findings, IMO, concern financial support. Fully 41% of Millennials--here defined as young adults ages 23-41, so basically young adults out of college--say they provide financial support to someone else, most commonly their parents. That’s higher than any other generation: Gen Xers (32%), late-wave Boomers (26%), early-wave Boomers (24%), or Silent (24%). These groups are more likely to be supporting their adult children.
• Millennials are also the most likely to say they are receiving financial support, mostly from their parents or parents-in-law. Fully 29% say they receive financial support, more than twice the share of Xers (13%) who say the same. The share of older generations who say they receive support is much smaller, ranging from just 4% to 6%.

• The study doesn’t clearly define financial support, other than to say it’s “beyond normal gift-giving.” That could mean everything from lending a few dollars here and there to regularly covering basic living expenses like rent or utilities. The broad range could help explain the yawning gap between the large share of Millennials who say they provide support to their parents (23%) and the very small shares of older generations who say they receive support from anybody. Millennials could be very generous in what they define as "financial support," perhaps because they are already thinking ahead about the need to support their parents in the future.
• In any case, from what we know from other sources, it's clear that the balance of support here is lopsided--with the parents doing a lot more of the providing. We are reminded once again how longstanding age patterns in wealth have inverted. (See “The Graying of Wealth.”)
• Also worth a look are the study’s findings on living arrangements. Of all generations, Millennials are the least likely to live alone (11%). The likelihood of living alone climbs as you move up the age ladder, with the highest share among the Silent (34%). For a generation that is getting married and starting families so late in life, not many are taking advantage of the "single lifestyle" so glamorized, once upon a time, by their own parents as young adults.
• Millennials are also the most likely to live with 5 or more other people. Some 70% of Millennials live with a spouse or partner, which probably includes most but not all of the 57% of Millennials who live with a child or step child. So what are the others doing? Well, 19% are living with parents or in-laws--clearly some of these are married. And then there are 10% who live with siblings, 4% with other relatives, 3% with friends, and (yes) 1% with grandchildren. Many of these categories overlap. But, again, not many live alone.

• Most Boomers and Silent live by themselves or with just one other person, most commonly a spouse. American elders are unique in this regard. When Pew conducted a global study of living arrangements in 2020, 16% of adults age 60 and older lived alone, on average, in the 130 countries studied. But with multigenerational households on the rise (see “Multigenerational Homes Are Smoking Hot”), the share of older adults living solo could be starting to tick down.