Grown kids cope with moving back home
When Lindsay Reynolds was furloughed from her events and marketing job at Disney this year, her parents suggested she leave Florida and move back home to Pennsylvania to save money while job hunting. She took them up on it.
“It was a good decision, but there are days when you feel like an absolute failure,” says Reynolds, 27. “I built this life in Florida and worked super hard. Nobody wants to move back in with their parents and admit they need help.”
But, she adds, it’s important to accept help when you need it. “None of us can do any of this alone,” she says, noting that she’s found work since moving home and is saving up to return to Florida early next year.
The coronavirus pandemic is putting pressure on many families – including those with grown children. Those pressures include:
About two-thirds of parents say they are providing financial support to their adult children during the crisis, helping to pay for everything from groceries to health care expenses.
Half are helping their adult children pay for everyday costs such as gas, according to a recent survey from Country Financial.
One in five has had their adult child move back home with them, according to the study, which is based on responses from more than 1,300 adults in mid-August.
Even before the pandemic, millennials were delaying life milestones such as buying homes and getting married as they coped with financial stresses like student loans – with many remaining in their parents’ homes longer than previous generations. But the pandemic delivered another economic whammy to this generation, with half of Americans between 25 to 39 years old suffering job or income losses since March, or about 5 percentage points higher than baby boomers, according to Census data.
“This trend of adult children moving back at home was something we saw a lot of out of the Great Recession,” says Troy Frerichs, vice president of investment services at Country Financial. “Now you are seeing it happen again.”
More support during pandemic
During economic downturns, young adults typically have less wealth to fall back on than older Americans. That may explain why 4 in 10 parents with adult kids told Country Financial that they are providing more support to their children during the pandemic than they did previously.
The data echoes September findings from the Pew Research Center that a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds are now living with their parents, surpassing a previous peak set during the Great Depression.
“You may have student debt and not
conversations, which we from time to time.”
Explaining the change in focus, Roslansky said that LinkedIn is now a “community where you can be inspired, build relationships and discover unexpected opportunities.”
Charlene Li, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, said she thinks adding Stories makes sense. “People are not going to post baby photos there,” she said. “It's about work and how you want to be seen and known as a professional.” Stories, she added, “are a great way to form connections, and that's what LinkedIn is all about.”
The cosmetic changes include more wide spaces, more colors and less of the “LinkedIn” blue. The community has increased sharing of posts and articles by 50% since the COVID-19 crisis started this year.
Since then, LinkedIn added a new “Open to Work,” tab to help the suddenly laid-off employee find new gigs. LinkedIn said people who accept this notice are receiving 40% more LinkedIn mails from recruiters.
Search is being added to LinkedIn pages to find “people, events, groups and content,” and new tabs are being added to LinkedIn messages to let people instantly connect to video meetings on Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Verizon's BlueJeans.
Asked about the resemblance to Facebook, Prasad said LinkedIn's goals are the same: to be a place for the business community to communicate. “We try to get people to have conversations with each other, so they can get more opportunities,” he said.
What makes it different from Facebook is the people who are on LinkedIn and the type of content they post. “Even if you look at it visually and you say OK, well, they look very similar to each other ... I think the content and the network is actually the difference.”
LinkedIn's services are free, but there also is a premium option, starting at $29.99 monthly, offering classes and the ability to write messages to people to which you're not connected.
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