According to new statistics, there is a new group of kids in town: the boomerangers. They are college graduates who move back home because of extreme unemployment rates among their age group. Nearly 15% of taxpayers between the age of twenty and twenty-four are unable to find employment. According to CNN Money:
"This recession has hit young adults particularly hard," according to Rich Morin, senior editor at the Pew Research Center in DC.
So hard that a whopping 85% of college seniors planned to move back home with their parents after graduation last May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing and research firm based in Philadelphia. That rate has steadily risen from 67% in 2006.
"It's peaking at levels we have not seen before," said David Morrison, managing director and founder of Twentysomething.
Mallory Jaroski, 22 graduated from Penn State University in May but has been living at home with her mother while looking for a job in press relations. "It's not bad living with my mom, but I feel like a little kid. I have a little bed, a little room," she says.
Jaroski thought she would stay for summer. But like many others, she's found her stay becoming significantly longer.
"There's almost an expectation that kids will move back home, there is no stigma attached," Morrison said. "The thought now is to move home for 6-12 months but in reality those young adults will be home for a year and a half or longer. Even if they have jobs, they are living at home."