I see. I used to look askance at stories of living with parents from a place like Italy back in the early 2000s, but in retrospect they were the canary in the coal mine. This is becoming a global phenomenon. It's hiding standards of living that are falling fast for younger generations. It's easier to keep people off the poverty rolls when they can move back in with parents and forgo starting families of their own.

It’s not the state of the entire economy. It’s one thing: housing prices. Most other economic stats are fine or even good.

Tuition and health care are also problems, but housing cost disease is the one that is most pervasive and affects the most people.

The root cause is mostly a supply problem due to bad zoning, bad regulations, and NIMBYs. This is exacerbated by prolonged extremely low interest rates flooding a constrained market with cash.

The economy is a bogus argument because you can always blame the economy for not moving out.

If the economy is bad then you can't move out. If the economy is good well then it is just about to get bad so you can't move out either.

There was never a time in the past that renting didn't eat up most of your money. I didn't know anyone who moved out when I moved out that wasn't also dead broke. This was in the mid 90s though and it was the most magical time to be on your own and young. I don't think I would bother moving out now though if I was young because why pay so much more money just to fuck off on your phone in your own apartment instead of your parent's basement?

The economics are pretty much the same. The culture though is night and day different.