{"id":19478,"date":"2025-08-15T12:05:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19478"},"modified":"2025-08-15T12:05:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T12:05:40","slug":"young-adults-reaching-key-milestones-notches-significant-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=19478","title":{"rendered":"Young adults reaching key milestones notches significant drop"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mellisa Soehono, 29, says she would “definitely” like to start a family someday.<\/p>\n

“I do get a little bit of ‘FOMO’ seeing my friends around my age getting married, settling into a new home \u2014 and I’m just not in a place where that is really realistic for me,” said the public relations executive in Jacksonville, Florida.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Soehono is not alone. Fewer 25- to 34-year-olds are getting married or having children, or even working full time or moving out of their parents’ home, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau\u00a0working paper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More from Personal Finance:<\/strong>
Here’s the inflation breakdown for July 2025
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Older student loan borrowers face high delinquency rates<\/p>\n

Compared to previous generations, the share of young adults reaching those four key benchmarks notched a “significant drop<\/a>,” the Census statisticians\u00a0found.<\/p>\n

Roughly 50 years ago, almost half of 25- to 34-year-olds achieved those milestones, which “mark the transition from adolescence to adulthood,” according to the analysis of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data \u2014 today, less than a quarter have done the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jhorrocks | E+ | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Soehono, who also has student debt from college, said she is not in a financial position to buy a home or start a family. “Where I am at with my life is focusing on my career because that’s really all I have right now,” she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to hefty student loan bills, the recent runup in\u00a0inflation\u00a0helped cause rent and\u00a0housing prices\u00a0to jump, worsening an affordability crunch for many just starting out.<\/p>\n

The median age of first-time homeowners is now 38 years old, an all-time high,\u00a0according\u00a0to a 2024 report by the National Association of Realtors<\/a>. In the 1980s, the typical first-time buyer was in their late 20s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>The ‘economic bar’ for milestones is rising<\/h2>\n
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Financial pressures \u2014 including rising housing costs, high rent burdens and the need for greater economic stability \u2014 are “major factors delaying family formation,” according to Douglas Boneparth, a certified financial planner and the president of Bone Fide Wealth in New York.<\/p>\n

“Living with parents has become more common, and many young adults now view marriage and children as goals to pursue only after securing financial independence,” said Boneparth,\u00a0a member of the\u00a0CNBC Financial Advisor Council.<\/p>\n

“The economic bar for starting a family has risen, with affordability concerns shaping the timing and sequencing of life milestones more than in prior generations,” he said.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mellisa Soehono, 29, says she would “definitely” like to start a family someday. “I do get a little bit of ‘FOMO’ seeing my friends around my age getting married, settling into a new home \u2014 and I’m just not in a place where that is really realistic for me,” said the public relations executive in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[2330,891,96,6125,7747,1030,3327,1283],"class_list":{"0":"post-19478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-finance-news","8":"tag-adults","9":"tag-drop","10":"tag-key","11":"tag-milestones","12":"tag-notches","13":"tag-reaching","14":"tag-significant","15":"tag-young"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}