Roth: Blame government for the reason young adults are STILL living with their parents

When the World Economic Forum, an organization littered with the global political and business elite, predicted that by 2030, “You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy,” the second part of the statement was just as intentional as the first. The elite need you to buy in to the concept of non-ownership, believing that giving up your wealth creation opportunities and private property is for your own good.

So, when I saw a media outlet from our neighbor to the north asking, “Should we stop obsessing over adult kids living with parents and just call it multi-generational living?” I immediately recognized that as coercive buy-in to the concept of non-ownership. And no, we should not rebrand the issue to accept the unacceptable; we should address the structural reasons why government and monetary policy are making it impossible for young people to own homes.

Young adults (not “adult kids,” as the article wants to portray them) are increasingly living with Mom and Dad. Recent Census Bureau statistics showed that in 2022 in the United States, 19% of men and 12% of women ages 25-34 are living with their parents. When this is done by choice, there is nothing wrong with that; in fact, it can be a good way to save some money for a few years or bond with your family. But, for many, this isn’t a matter of choice. The hard reality is that more young adults are feeling severe, chronic economic pain from government and monetary policy.

A recent report from real estate brokerage firm Redfin showed that housing affordability hit a historic low in the United States in 2022, with less than a quarter of listed homes considered affordable for the typical American homebuyer.

Redfin’s deputy chief economist Taylor Marr told The Hill, “Housing affordability is at the lowest level in history, which is widening the wealth gap — especially between generations.”

This is thanks to government and monetary policy. On the monetary policy front, with the Fed both protecting the interests of Wall Street and allowing for years of cheap capital with which the government could finance its deficits, the wealthy benefitted while the average person saw the American dream slipping away.

During the Great Recession financial crisis, while both individuals and financial institutions took on too much risk vis-à-vis housing, their outcomes were starkly different. Individuals lost almost 5 million homes, while financial institutions received bailouts.

The scenario also led to an underbuilding of homes, one that is estimated to have led to approximately between 4 and 5 million too few single-family homes to meet market demand today. Too little supply leads to an increase in prices.

Additionally, the cheap capital from the Fed’s “easy money” policies enabled corporations to do something that they had never done before in history: compete with you for a home. As I found out in the research for my upcoming book, "You Will Own Nothing," this is a market that did not exist prior to 2010. But as of last year, around one in every five homes sold in the U.S. was sold to a corporate investor!

These investors aren’t looking to flip the homes; they want to rent you back the American dream, enriching themselves with young people and other would-be homebuyers paying the price.

This is all exacerbated by expensive government regulations at the federal, state, and local levels that both make it more expensive and, often, very difficult to build new homes, particularly new affordable homes.

This activity makes housing out of reach to buy. It also increases rents, which have increased significantly over the past few years.

Layer on top of all of this the personal balance sheets of young people being destroyed by college debt. To put it bluntly, college and university degrees have become the biggest legal financial scam in the country, and the U.S. government has morphed into the largest predatory lender in support of it.

The government nationalizing a large part of the college lending business has driven up college costs in recent decades at a rate of almost five times the growth in GDP and a staggering almost eight times the growth in wages, according to Forbes.

This has created a huge wealth transfer from young people to college administrators, saddling young people with debt for degrees that don’t pay off.

As of Q1 2023, in the 25- to 34-year-old age bracket, around 15.1 million Americans held around a half-trillion dollars in college loan debt principal; in the 35- to 49-year-old bracket, 14.7 million Americans held $636.2 billion.

This is delaying the ability of young people to make investments, including in homes.

With housing being inflated by policy and young people’s balance sheets being destroyed by policy, it is little surprise they are going back to the nest. They literally cannot afford to do otherwise.

This is not something to make excuses for or explain away. It is robbing younger generations of the opportunity to participate in the American dream. The elite want it that way, but the rest of us cannot stand for it; the American dream, including owning a home (with or without a white picket fence) must be accessible to everyone.

Carol Roth's new book, “You Will Own Nothing,” is available for pre-order now.