Nearly 30% of Millennials Receive Financial Support From Their Mom or Dad [MagnifyMoney Survey]
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Adults living with their parents was becoming more common in the U.S. even before the coronavirus pandemic upended jobs and finances, sending an influx of adults back to their parents’ homes. But hosting adult children at home is just one way parents may financially support their offspring.
The most recent MagnifyMoney survey found 22% of adults receive financial support from their parents, whether it’s paying phone bills or helping with rent costs. That percentage jumps to almost 30% for millennials — who have long been called the “broke generation”.
Full survey findings: https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/news/parental-financial-support-survey/.
Key findings:
- While not everyone still receives money help from mom or dad, 56% of Americans say their parents helped them financially at some point during adulthood.
- 55% of parents with adult children say they provide financial support to their kids at least occasionally.
- On the other hand, 21% of Americans are currently providing financial support to their parents.
Living with your mom or dad as an adult can be stressful depending on relationships and individual desires, but those benefiting from a rent-free situation should focus on the savings advantage.
“The money you would have spent on rent should be squirreled away monthly into a savings or investment account so that your money can grow,” MagnifyMoney senior content director Ismat Mangla says.
Cellphone plans rank as the most popular way parents of Gen Zers, millennials or Gen Xers (ages 41 to 55) support their children. The rate of support for phone plans drops as consumers get older, with no baby boomers reporting parental help in this area:
- Gen Zers: 39%
- Millennials: 12%
- Gen Xers: 5%
- Baby boomers: 0%
Housing comes next for the middle generations as 7% of millennials and 3% of Gen Xers live at home rent-free. While a large share — 27% — of Gen Zers also live at home, a larger portion (32%) reap the benefits of their parents’ health insurance.
While most adults surveyed are currently financially independent from their parents, most — 56% — report receiving some monetary support at one point after turning 18. Most popularly, 24% of respondents say their mom or dad helped pay for college. Another 22% have lived at home rent-free as an adult.
On the contrary, 32% of consumers report being “cut off” financially when they turned 18. Another 15% of folks had to fund their expenses around ages 21 to 22, but 16% report not being completely cut off.
The majority of those surveyed (59%) don’t expect to get an inheritance — assets received after a death — but certain factors make folks more likely to expect to come into some family money in the future.
Those consumers in the highest household income bracket — earning $100,000 or more — are most likely to benefit from an inheritance, with 33% having already received one and 23% expecting to inherit some amount in the future. The majority of those high-earners also expect a large inheritance, with 53% of consumers who earn six figures planning to inherit $100,000 or more.
Methodology
MagnifyMoney commissioned Qualtrics to conduct an online survey of 2,050 U.S. consumers from Sept. 14-20, 2021. The survey was administered using a nonprobability-based sample, and quotas were used to ensure the sample base represented the overall population. All responses were reviewed by researchers for quality control.
We defined generations as the following ages in 2021:
- Gen Zers: 18 to 24
- Millennials: 25 to 40
- Gen Xers: 41 to 55
- Baby boomers: 56 to 75
While the survey also included consumers from the silent generation (age 76 and older), the sample size was too small to include findings related to that group in the generational breakdowns.
