It’s an annoying cliche, the Millennial who lives with his parents. But for young adults in Sarasota and Manatee Counties, it’s real life.
The newest census figures show that 42 percent of Sarasota County residents age 18-34 lived with their parents in 2015, a larger percentage than lived with a spouse, an unmarried partner or with roommates.
In Manatee County, it’s 43 percent. For Florida, it’s 38 percent, and nationally, just over 34 percent of young adults lived in their parent’s homes.
Now I know there’s a big difference between an 18-year-old living at home and a 34-year-old living at home, and the census doesn’t tell us how the ages are distributed within the group. And this is the first year the U.S. Census Bureau has asked this question, so we don’t have a way to tell if the number of Millennials living at home is increasing or decreasing.
At first, the large number surprised me. But then I remembered Unravel’s in-depth look at housing affordability in our region, and it all made sense.
Half of young adults age 18-40 told Unravel in a survey that they were considering leaving the area simply because of the high cost of housing. And 26 percent of the Millennials we surveyed earned less than $30,000 per year before taxes.
The new census data shows that young adults age 15-24 had the lowest median income of any age group in Sarasota and Manatee Counties in 2015, just $34,734 in Sarasota and $37,211 in Manatee. More worrying, this age group earned less in 2015 than they did in 2009, at the height of the Great Recession.
It makes sense that younger people would earn less money than older, more experienced workers, but it also makes sense that people earning the lowest salaries are not able to afford basic housing on their own.
The numbers confirm what Millennials have been saying for years—it’s tough out there. Just because we haven’t bought a home by the time we’re 25 doesn’t make us a failure. And maybe we could use a bit more help and a little less judgment for the economic choices we have to make.