American Parents are Spending Billions on Their Adult Children

Parents are supporting their children beyond their formidable years according to a current trend. Merrill Lynch conducted a study that found that 79% of parents continue to provide financially for their adult children, not only for the big purchases such as college and weddings but also for the everyday expenses such as rent, groceries, and bills.  This amounts to $500 billion annually from parents, twice as much as being contributed to retirement accounts. 63% of parents said in the study they have sacrificed their financial security for the sake of their children.

Adults are also continuing to live at home with their parents, and one in four of those of adults neither go to school nor do they work. “You start to see adult children who are not being put in a position where they can be successful in their own right because they have a crutch which is different than an opportunity,” said Denise Hoffman White, a tax and estate planning attorney based in Denver.

“You want to give … but sometimes giving them isn’t actually helping them,” said Gary Cooper, a private wealth adviser at UBS Financial Services. “Our job is to help them, not do for them, right?”

See Barry Petersen & Vidya Singh, American Parents are Spending Billions on Their Adult Children, WIVB.com, December 15, 2018.

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.