patrick.net

Seems that living at home under age 30 is up 45% - 65% depending on how you count it.--

20 million people ages 18 to 34 live at home with their parents

The current severe recession has pushed the extended family in the U.S. into a role well appreciated world wide -- an economic safety net.

The recession, loss of jobs and homes, high cost of living and growing debt are forcing adults to turn back to their parents for financial help. These boomerang kids, as sociologists and psychologists call them, are the latest change in the ever-shifting landscape of the American family. Intergenerational households -- parents, their children and sometimes grandparents -- were common in the 19th century. That changed early in the 20th century, when sons and daughters married younger -- sometimes in their teens -- and quickly moved out to create their own households. Then the Great Depression forced families back together. They once again grew apart during various lush economic periods that followed.
According to 2008 Census figures, 20 million people ages 18 to 34 live at home with their parents -- 30 percent of that age group. Researchers for the Network on Transitions to Adulthood, a group financed by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, found that since the 1970s, the number of twentysomethings living with their parents has increased by 50 percent. Of those who moved out of the house by age 22, 16 percent returned home before they hit 35, the researchers found.

Almost half of June 2008's college graduates had planned to move home after graduation, according to a survey by the employment Web site Monster.com.

David A. Morrison, president and founder of Twentysomething, a consulting firm that researches young adults, said the last time he noticed this phenomenon was during the recession that hit the country around 2001. But the severity of this economic downturn has forced children of all age groups, single or married, back home, he said. The dynamic is different.