back
274 comments
Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes:

- "x% of what? what is the denominator?". Without that number, the claim is meaningless. - surely it cannot be the entire population, so it has to be a survey. - how many people participated in the survey? what was the distribution?

Here is that info for this study. I found this in the PDF version of the study report [0] referred to at the end of the Northwestern page [1].

> Methodology The Harris Poll conducted a total of 4,375 online interviews among the general U.S. adult (18+) population between January 5th and January 21st, 2026. Included in this overall total is a sample of 816 High-Net-Worth individuals (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).

[0] https://filecache.mediaroom.com/mr5mr_nwmutual/179168/2026%2...

[1] https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...

> "conducted a total of 4,375 online interviews"

How? Mechanical Turk? Ads? This sort of survey is biased toward people who click on lots of stuff.

I love mental rule of thumbs / heuristics that we can install into our brain to avoid getting caught up in cognitive biases or other mistakes.

An easy one that I would expect most HN readers probably do already is: When shopping, always round up to the nearest dollar before even mentally storing it or operating on it. The usual cognitive bias is that many people end up storing the listed price of $4.96 in a lossy manner, as $4.xx, and end up thinking of it as $4 when in reality they could be skipping straight to keeping it as $5 in their head.

> Whenever I see a claim that "x% of adults do y", my brain goes

Would that everyone employed this level of skepticism before commenting on figures.

> (those with total household investable assets, excluding pensions, retirement plans and property, greater than $1,000,000).

Am I reading this wrong, is this about trust fund kids?

Typically surveys are adjusted for sampling biases before reporting. That appears to be the case here. So there is usually some attempt to account for the biases in the sampled population.

The impulse to ask "what population was sampled?" is good but its not always a straight line from there to "these results directly reflect that sampling bias."

In fact, from the page you posted: "Data for the general U.S. population (including the High Net Worth oversample) were weighted to Census targets for education, age, gender, race/ethnicity, region and household income. A full methodology is available."

I would presume that the headline number attempts to account for sampling bias.

If you look into Italy its like 60% to 70%.
> "x% of what? what is the denominator?"

Another reason the denominator is important is that "parents" are (hopefully) completely a subset of "adults". And not all adults have living parents. So who is counted:

    - All adults
    - Adults with living parents
    - Adults within an age range
    - Adults without children
or what? This really belongs in the title. Without it, as you say, the statistic is meaningless.
A 4k sample size is more than enough to be statistically significant for the population of the US. So what's the actual problem you have?
Related - any time a study is based on gathering the opinions of a random subset of the population, I also instantly dismiss it. The average person is a moron. I don't care about random people's subjective opinions, I only care about objective data. People polled in the 16th century would have said the sun orbits the earth; that doesn't make it true.
Downward mobility is almost entirely caused by housing costs, which are a self-inflicted problem. We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing.

I live in an expensive area and I'm always shocked by how many of my friends who cannot afford to buy a home (or even a condo) are NIMBYs. These are people in their 20s through 40s who have been earning since college, can't afford to buy, yet get annoyed whenever there's new construction that "alters the character of the neighborhood". Talk about false consciousness. I can at least understand people who own a home feeling this way.

I may or may not meet your definition as a nimby 28 year old. I am all for housing, just not the type being built in my area. Dozens of “luxury” units built cheaply, selling for 4,000$ for a 1 bedroom. They get subsidized by the local government for including maybe 5 units that are “low income” and probably still cost 2k - and those low income units go away as soon as the building gets sold to another corporation.

I want lots of high quality, dignified housing for myself and my community, not wealth extraction pods. I want real public housing. Housing should be a human right. As it stands now the land is being squatted by mega corporations seeking to extract as much profit from the community as possible.

> We don't, as a matter of intentional policy, build enough housing.

If actual number of houses was the problem, house prices would not be increasing in areas of population decline. It's existing houses being repriced upward by speculation that makes them unaffordable.

California problem. There's no constrained supply in Houston or Austin or a few other cities in the US that are now crashing from over supply.

Another one is Manhattan. There's no space to build so things get retrofitted (office conversions) and new zoning (Hudson Yards) but it's expensive - high hourly rates to pay people on buildings with more 99 units, many many permits required, land is expensive, etc

So it's luxury only in NYC

None of this is NIMBYism.

Part of it is return to office. Why move there if it's too expensive - the answer is you're unemployed otherwise

Part of it is demand. NYC is the closest thing to Europe, where you don't drive around in an SUV to do simple things. The GDP is enormous, so you find jobs. Young people. Etc

Housing costs are a lot more complicated than NIMBYism. There's a strong California bias for obvious reasons, here on HN.

When I was a kid, we never had a ton of extra money, but my parents were very supportive-- they paid for most of my college expenses, for example. Their outlook was that us kids shouldn't have to work-- "school is your job". (However, both my sister and I _did_ have jobs while in school).

However, I never _asked_ my parents for money. I had a good education and a well-paying job, and was able to turn IPO money into a house down payment. In the end, we struggled to close the deal, and my wife and I both asked to borrow money from our parents. Of course they were happy to do so, but I still remember it as feeling so hard to do -- just something that I "shouldn't" have to do. And, of course, it also made me reflect on those who didn't have family support to fall back on, let alone jobs that paid well.

The figure might be misleading. It might not be.

Either way, the idea that the natural and normal state of affairs is that every person can go out into the world and be a perfectly self sufficient but comfortable atomized economic unit without support from their family or society is deeply flawed.

This wasn't the norm for most of human history, and it isn't the norm globally today.

The question that was ask in the survey was: How financially independent you currently feel from your parents (meaning you could support yourself without them if needed)

I understand that YC is questioning the results of the survey. The YC community is very privileged; and i bet, if we do the same survey in this community, 20% or less of adults rely on their parents.

My 20-something son is living with us but he does pay (some) rent.

I half expect to have to apologize for this, like when I was growing up people would think you are a loser if you were in this situation. Today people think we are really smart and the people who are paying more rent than they can afford to live alone that are losing.

33% of GenX is still depending on their parents? That's shocking... I'm at the young end of GenX at 49yo. So, a slice of the population that is fast approaching retirement age is still reliant on their septuagenarian or octogenarian parents for money? Wow.
I think the word "rely" is doing some heavy lifting here. Still being on your parent's family phone plan doesnt mean youd be destitute if they werent helping you out.
This article is shilling some courseware for CNBC FYI.
These numbers are a nice snapshot, but I see no comparison to historical numbers in the article. I know many families who have had intergenerational support happening from older to younger and vice versa.
> A large portion of U.S. adults are making ends meet with help from their parents.
The premise of TFA along with the entirety of the comments are eloquently embodied by the misfit troubadour and grunge philosopher Todd Snider in Statistician's Blues [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUK6zjtUj00

The link to their study is much more interesting: https://news.northwesternmutual.com/planning-and-progress-st...
Its expensive out there. I used to judge people for not being able to stand on their own but now my mindset is if someone is working 40+ hours a week and sticking to a reasonable budget and not driving a new car then not sure what else we can ask them to do.

Most of these people that are getting help aren't saving for retirement either so its just a long game of desperation. Easy to say get a better job but not everyone has the skills or mental acuity to do that. With that said there are aboslutely a lot of people that have no concept of budgeting and are their own worst enemy

Ok, but why?

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com has been linked on HN many times before.

Is it related to that?

Searching the internet, one can read more, such as:

> In August 1971, alongside the "Nixon Shock" that severed the dollar's convertibility to gold, the Nixon administration imposed a 90-day economy-wide freeze on all wages and prices. This was the first time the U.S. enacted wage and price controls outside of wartime. Following the initial 90-day freeze, the Nixon administration implemented a complex, multi-tiered price control system on the petroleum industry that lasted for years.

> In August 1971, Nixon was "floating" the dollar, abandoning the gold standard and "freezing" prices and wages.

This video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EBEapf3OFw asks the below:

> Why did America deliberately destroy its own manufacturing industry?

And starts off,

> It did not happen all at once. Americans watched their own country lose it, brand by brand, factory by factory. Every time, the country was handed the same three reasons...(It looked inevitable. And every one of them was true enough to believe.) Plenty of those factories were still making money the day they were ordered shut. They closed anyway, on the say-so of men who had never worked a shift in their lives and grew richer each time another one went dark....

The biggest problem here is finding secure and reliable income in the long term. People here in the 1960s, for instance, could save up quite a lot of money. This is of course possible today too, but what if you can only find low income jobs? You'll remain working poor for the rest of your life. That's not exactly fair from an inter-generational point of view. Meanwhile the number of superrich is growing. That's also unfair. And money buys legislation, so (many, but not all) democracies are broken.
As a Greek, and I believe fellow Italians do, I cannot believe how one can live for the first 10-20 years of his adult life without their parents' help, especially today. Old money, inheritance and a house are almost always existent and extend the intergenerational bonding. I don't know if I am jealous or repelled by northern Europeans or even the USA that don't exhibit thus behaviour.
It's shocking how once again the number one contributing factor to success is being born to parents who support you for your whole life.
I lived with my parents until I was 20 and they helped me out until I was 22. My girlfriend's kids are on the same path. Though even with people in their 30s and 40s I think it's common to get help for unexpected big expenses because a lot of people don't have adequate emergency funds.
So: Since this is US centric:

- Is it better/worse than other countries? ... better/worse than "comparable" countries?

- What's the historical trend?

- And in both directions (geographical, historical): How does it relate to the respective diffences in wealth inequality?

I rely on my kids for financial support. It takes four of us (earning typical wages) to afford basic bills + basic emergencies.

I don't believe the US will exit the 4-income economy in my lifetime.

have a large extended family almost entirely living in the Seattle area while i grew up in rural Oregon

i moved out after high school and did my best to stay out (of course occasionally life has other plans). nearly all of my 30ish Seattle cousins stayed with their parents until getting married, some never moved out. i was so confused because i was close with my cousins and we seemed pretty like-minded, but it really just came down to housing costs

I'd wager that number isn't so different from previous generations, but it's just not as taboo to admit it nowadays.
So if said kids are relying on their parents for support... how are their kids going to rely on them? The idea behind generational wealth is that there is something left to pass down. If you have nothing to pass down, because both you and your parents spent it all, then you're fully on your own to support yourself. Somewhere along the line the bill always comes due.
Reminder that black US slave descendants have a median wealth of about $5000 (i.e the equity they have in their cars.) When you consider black crime, consider the OP statistic in light of that. Most black people I know have parents who rely on their support (and siblings, and cousins, etc.)

Whatever is happening to 42% of Americans is happening to 97% (figures drawn from my ass) of black Americans. $5000 is pretty good. I'm from Chicago, where the median black wealth is $0.

https://colorofwealth.org/

The post WW2 boom in America was an exceptional time. This is the status quo for humanity.
This seems to be some self-help for the well-off (and their kids) to not feel bad about such dependence, but totally ignores the large population whose parents aren't affluent enough to support their children. Or may even need support from their children. I don't think the feefees of the well off is the gravest issue here.
The parallels between the Great Depression and the conditions now are worrisome.
Many people I know brag about how much they rely on their parents.
Because boomers are selfish and holding onto most of the wealth, ruining and destroying the generations to follow. It’s a weird phenomenon actually, their parents gave them everything possible, even independence, yet, the boomers do all sort of shenanigans to keep holding on the wealth, and when they can’t, they go on manipulation tactics, as if their lives are the center of universe and all generations after are the minions to serve them.
I may have ended up that way if I hadn’t gotten into software as a teenager. Luckily a did and the timing was right for me to make some sort of decent career out of it.

I did live independently prior to going into software, but it sucked and was fragile and likely would have fallen apart long term. I also doubt I could find a similar living situation as a young man with no credit or much money to his name. Even the mom and pop landlords use management companies that run you through a black box for approval/rejection with little room for negotiation.

> CPI inflation would suggest that the current cost ought to be about $692.

Rent alone will probably blow that. I live in a burnt out rust belt shithole city and I’m struggling to understand how rent is this high. I pay a good bit more than $692 to live in a slum just outside the ghetto right now and I have to feel gracious for that. It’s closer to what I paid in a decent middle class neighborhood in Florida. That was only 5-6 years ago.

This is in a city where the best people can say about it is: “well it’s cheaper”.

Hell when I lived in South Carolina from 2017-2019. My apartment there was closer to the stated inflation figure, but this was for a place that regularly flooded the downstairs neighbors and left me for weeks without AC in the peak of summer because of careless management.

Still not as bad as business rents. I’ve seen downtown business close because they’re being made to be $7000 for a shitty 100 year old property surrounded by condemned properties.

How you define “rely”.

I’ve certainly seen trust fund kids who’s success is anchored on “daddy gave me a sweet job at his company” and others who’d be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for the constant money poured into the legal system by their parents.

What do you call the situation where your parents depend on your support? I helped my dad with a 6000 Euro out of pocket surgery so he can regain the use of his shoulder. And I'm an average working class Europoor, not a stock broker. And my mom is paying some of the bills for my grandma because she can't afford the bills on her ~300 Euro pension.