Well Into Adulthood and Still Getting Money From Their Parents

Well Into Adulthoodand Still Getting Money From Their Parents

Parents have always supported their children into adulthood, fromfunding weddings to buying a home. Now the financial umbilical cord extendsmuch later into adulthood.

About 59% of parents said they helped their young adult childrenfinancially in the past year, according to a report released Thursday by thePew Research Center that focused on adults under age 35.

Parental support is continuing later in life because younger people nowtake longer to reach many adult milestones—and getting there is more expensivethan it has been for past generations, economists and researchers said. Thereis also a larger wealth gap between older Americans and younger ones, givingsome parents more means and reason to help. In short, adulthood no longer meansmoving off the parental payroll.

This longer-term help might be a drag on social mobility, as it becomeseven harder for young people from lower-income families to catch up,researchers said.

Down-payment help from parents—a given for many first-time homebuyers—is growing thanks to higher home prices and elevated mortgage rates.

Timothy Burke, chief executive at National Family Mortgage, whichfacilitates such loans, said parents are often frustrated on behalf of theirhouse-hunting children. High interest rates and the cutthroat housing marketare holding their children back from reaching a milestone the parentsthemselves were more easily able to access.