A new poll released by Bankrate found that seven in 10 parents with adult children are currently making financial sacrifices to help provide for their offspring. 

The poll found 68 percent of parents tapped into their emergency savings, retirement funds, and other financial milestones to provide for their children who are 18 and over, CNBC reported. The study went on to say that about one-third of these parents said they had to sacrifice “significantly” to keep their children afloat. 

About 51 percent of these parents said they used emergency savings funds, 49 percent said they sacrificed paying off their own personal debt, and 43 percent said the financial support impacted their retirement savings. (See “COVID LOCKDOWNS, NOT THE ‘PANDEMIC’ RUINED LIFE ON EARTH,” 4 Apr 2023.)

The Bankrate poll found that Gen Z believes young adults “should begin to pay bills later in life than older generations do, but they may be putting off financial independence as a result.”

The poll found baby boomers (59-77) and Gen Zers “have the starkest difference between ideal ages: On average, baby boomers believe adults should begin to independently pay for various bills around one to three years sooner than Gen Zers do.”

Bankrate found that men, on average, believe people should begin to pay their own bills around six to 12 months younger than women do.

Ted Rossman, a Bankrate senior industry analyst, said paying your child’s bills “can enable bad behavior or stunt an adult child’s development.”

“It can also put your own retirement and other financial goals at risk. You can get loans for a lot of things, but retirement isn’t one of them,” he said. 

Americans Feeling Financially Stressed

A CNBC Your Money Financial Confidence Survey found that 70 percent of Americans admit that they are stressed out about their financial situation and about 52 percent said they are more stressed now than any time before the COVID-19 outbreak.

The survey questioned 4,336 adults and was conducted at the end of March. About 60 percent of participants blamed inflation for their financial woes while 43 percent blamed the overall economic instability. About 36 percent worried about a lack of savings. 

TREND FORECAST: America is no longer “The Land of Opportunity.” As we have detailed, across the economic spectrum—from chain stores to healthcare, from gas stations to supermarkets—the locals own next to nothing and the “Bigs” own it all. The majority of Americans are plantation workers of Slavelandia. For adults to be getting “allowances” from Mommy and Daddy exemplifies the decline of America.  

TRENDPOST: News outlets like to blame “the Pandemic” for destroying the economy and for creating other problems, but the reality is that it was the useless political mandates that locked down the nation that caused incalculable socioeconomic damage to the economy. (See “COVID-19 LOCKDOWNS LEFT CHILDREN BRAIN DAMAGED, NEW STUDY SUGGESTS” 6 Dec 2022, “AS FORECAST: U.S. SCHOOL CHILDREN GETTING DUMBER AFTER COVID LOCKDOWNS” 26 Oct 2022 and “WHO NEEDS COLLEGE? UNIVERSITIES STRUGGLE WITH ENROLLMENT AFTER COVID LOCKDOWNS, AS WE FORECAST” 12 Oct 2022.)

Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, told the news outlet that Americans are worried that the money they’ve saved “won’t last and are worried they’re going to have to lean more on their credit cards and other sources of debt just to get by.”

The average U.S. household has $6,473 in credit card debt compared to $5,221 in the third quarter of 2021. The U.S. Federal Reserve said household debt levels increased by $38 billion year over year in February. Just 45 percent of Americans said they have an emergency fund and – of those who said they have an emergency fund, 26 percent said they have less than $5,000 saved, the report said.

The financial stress is not limited to low-income Americans. About one-third of those polled who pulled in six figures admitted that they are living paycheck to paycheck.

The CNBC report noted that Americans find themselves concerned about the country’s banking system in general after the high-profile collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature. About 13 percent of those polled said they were very confident in the banking system.

A Pew Research Center poll released this month shed some light on the steep decline in living standards among Americans—the young in particular—who are forced to move back home to live with their parents due to the lack of a steady income and work. 

The poll found that about 52 percent of Americans from 18 to 29 years old live with their parents, which Pew identified as a record—even when considering WWII and the Great Depression. (The proportion of those living at home never exceeded 48 percent.)