Vocabulary

 

spread	pandemic	accelerate (2)
choice	significant	move back
inherit	columnist	correspondent
go back	riding high	ride/rode/ridden
racy	shut down	shut/shut/shut
tour	comedian	no end in sight
shelter	recession	know/knew/known
stretch	consultant	generation
co (2)	majority	public relations
profit	share (3)	rise/rose/risen
occur	sharp (2)	poster child
lay off	matter (2)	lose/lost/lost (2)
rent	poster (2)	shelter in place
lime	nest (2)	supposed to
hope	co-wrote	stretch back
rent	epidemic	flee/fled/fled
roam	peak (2)	epicenter (2)
remote	nonprofit	work remotely
suburb	grocery	quintessential
motive	personal	expenditure
track	emergency	stop in their tracks
lease	miss (3)	step foot in
save up	come back	leave/left/left
let (2)	move out	roommate
loan	eliminate	cut/cut/cut
illness	major (2)	back to square one
lucky	burdened	altogether
debt	hit/hit/hit	disappointing
similar	space (2)	formative years
income	trajectory	get used to
key (2)	ownership	buy/bought/bought
wealth	renovate	grow/grew/grown (2)
drag	period (4)	build/built/built
delay	appliance	household
add (2)	over time	spend/spent/spent
initial	comfort	feel/felt/felt (2)
market	couple (2)	in my mind
role	senior (3)	live on my own
setback	milestone	step back (2)
date (3)	literally	step forward (2)
wish	form (3)	other side of the coin
risk	landline	in terms of
expose	square (4)	tell/told/told
thrilled	contagion	over the moon
entice	sign (3)	stick around
Venmo	wind (2)	go through (2)
idyllic	election	see eye to eye
messy	stick (2)	furlough (2)
forever	wind down	according to
career	find out	find/found/found
trait	talk about	say/said/said
fail	launch (2)	take comfort
excited	furniture	compared to

 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

JUDY WOODRUFF, News Presenter: The pandemic has accelerated a change in housing in this country that began well before COVID-19 spread. Millennials, adults between the ages of twenty-four (24) and twenty-nine (39), continue to move back home with their parents in significant numbers.

For some, it’s by choice. But, for many, it’s a matter of necessity.

Special correspondent Catherine Rampell, who is a columnist for The Washington Post, has our report.

 

At the start of 2020, comedian Nikki Glaser was riding high, a racy Netflix special, national tour, TV shows in development.

Then you know what happened.

NIKKI GLASER: “Everything started shutting down. And I was like, I will just go back to Saint Louis for a week or so, you know?”

Seven months later . . .

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “I’m a thirty-six (36) year old woman who is living with her parents, and there’s no end in sight.”

Little did Nikki Glaser know back in March that she’d be a poster child for her generation’s response to the pandemic, young adults moving back home with their parents.

RICHARD FRY, Pew Research Center: “This is the highest it’s every been, stretching back to 1900 in the historical record.”

Economist Richard Fry just co-wrote a study showing that a majority of young adults are now living with their parents, though the share has been rising for a while.

RICHARD FRY, Pew Research Center:” Many of us expected that it was going to peak and begin to decline after the Great Recession. That did not occur. It continued to rise. And now it has sharply accelerated again in the space of five months.”

Millions of Millenials have moved back home.

 

Many, like Eric Rivera, lost their jobs, his in public relations.

ERIC RIVERA, Millennial: “I got laid off the weekend before shelter in place happened.”

Goodbye pricey Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Hello rent-free Hamilton Township, New Jersey.

ERIC RIVERA, Millennial: “Yes, I’m back in my childhood bedroom. It’s no longer lime green, so I’m very happy about that.”

Others, like Whitney Conkling, hoped to save money on not just rent, but child care. She, husband Scott Oldebeken, PhD, and baby Oliver are back home with her folks in Houston.

WHITNEY CONKLING, Millennial: “They were supposed to send their last child of to college, and enjoy the empty nesting life. But, yes, they have inherited three more of us.”

Management consultant Molly Le, working from home, fled the then epicenter of the epidemic for somewhere with room to roam; her parents’ house in North Carolina.

MOLLY LE, Millennial: “It’s way better than my New York shoe box apartment.”

Jon Benitez, working remotely for a nonprofit, moved back to his childhood home in the quintessential suburb, Levittown, New York, partly to help his parents.

Jon Benitez, Moved Back with Parents: “Because of the economy, my parents haven’t been working. I was helping the groceries, helping with any expenditure the family had.”

And some just had more personal reasons.

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “There’s really something about this time that makes you want to be with people you love, and who love you unconditionally. And for me, that’s just my parents.”

But even this big star had some financial motives for heading home.

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “There’s been a lot of things that have just stopped in their tracks and got canceled.”

Meanwhile . . .

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “I had just signed a lease, March 1 for an apartment in New York. I have paid full rent for a really expensive place that I have never even stepped foot in even once for this whole year.”

Marcellus Adams never even got a chance to sign his lease. Except for college, he’s lived with parents his whole life.

MARCELLUS ADAMS, Millennial: “I did not want to leave and then come back and be like, ‘Hey, well, I’m back’.”

But recently, he had been saving up, working two jobs, one in a hospital emergency room; the other as an auto mechanic. He found a possible roommate, and had been planning to move out in the spring.

Then his hospital hours were cut, and his mechanic job was eliminated altogether. At twenty-nine (29), he’s back at square one.

MARCELLUS ADAMS, Millennial: “It’s disappointing. There’s literally no other words than I can place on that. It’s just disappointing.”

 

Millennials have been unusually unlucky. Burdened by student load debt, they have also been hit by two major recessions within the first decade of their careers.

NELA RICHARDSON, Chief Economist, ADP: “Those formative years of entering the job market really set the trajectory for not only your career, but your wealth and income over time.

And this is key here, because home-ownership typically is a way of growing wealth as an adult. So the longer you delay that entry into home ownership, the less time you have to build that wealth over time.”

And the longer Millennials wait to move out of their parents’ homes, period, the bigger the drag on the economy. Fewer household being formed means less spending on housing related.

NELA RICHARDSON, Chief Economist, ADP: “Housing, if you add in all those housing services and buying appliances or renovating, is about fifteen to eighteen percent (15% to 18%) of the economy.

Five, ten years out, if we still have people who lost that initial step into adulthood, this is a missing part of the economy that could be felt for years.”

ERIC RIVERA, Millennial: “I turned thirty while we were still in shelter in place. So in my mind, in this place in my life, I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to have really nice furniture that’s not from Ikea. I wanted to have kind of a senior role in my career.

That kind of was just turned upside down. And then, moving home, it’s like I feel like I took a couple of steps back.

 

These setbacks are part of the reason why Millennials are behind on non-economic milestones too, like marriage.

RICHARD FRY, Senior Researcher, Pew Research Center: “In terms of sort of the share of 23 to 38 year-olds that are married, among the Millennial generation, about forty-four percent (44%). Gen X back in 2003, it was about 53%.”

Understandably perhaps. It’s hard to date when you’re living with mom and dad.

MARCELLUS ADAMS, Millennial: “Some women are definitely understanding, and because they are going through something similar. And then there’s the other side of the coin, ‘Oh, you live with your parents? Hmmm, I don’t know if I like you that much,’ you know?”

CATHERINE RAMPELL, Journalist: “And do your parents know about your boyfriend?

Molly Le, Millennial: “No!”

CATHERINE RAMPELL, Journalist: “Okay.”

During a pandemic, of course, there are other risks to dating, like exposing your parents to illness.

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “A guy asked e on a date or to some party. I texted him: ‘I’m sorry; I can’t go — my mom won’t let me.’

And the last time that I ever told a boy, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t, my mom won’t let me — I have never don’t that. I never texted that, because texting didn’t exist the last time that was an answer to anyone: landlines did.”

 

Other than contagion risk, how do parents feel about having their adult kids back? Some are thrilled.

FATHER: “Having them here is fun for us. We enjoy it.
MOTHER: “We enjoy it honestly.”

JON BENITEZ, Moved Back with Parents: “My mother is over the moon, having all three of us here.

Yes, both his brothers are living at home too.

MAURICIO BENITEZ, Millennial: “I’m 33.”
JON BENITEZ, Millennial: “I’m 30.”
SANTIAGO BENITEZ, Millennial: “I’m 26.”

Santiago was laid off from a movie theater; Mauricio furloughed from from is job as a chef. It’s a full house.

MAURICIO BENITEZ: “They love it. They wish it could stay like this. But unfortunately, we’re all grown men.”

Molly Le’s parents even bought a new, bigger house in May to entice her to stick around.

NAM LE, Father: “I wish this is forever.

 

But it’s not all idyllic.

WHITNEY CONKLING, Millennia Wife: “We’re in an election year, and we don’t necessarily see eye to eye.”
MR. CONKLING, Millennial Husband: “We just don’t talk about it.
Hygiene.

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “I still have a messy room. So I Venmo my mom somethings to just clean my room. I’m living here for free. I will Venmo her, and she gets SO excited.

Their time together may be winding down, at least according to her father, E. J.

E. J. GLASER, Father: “So I think Nikki’s going to get a place in the next month or so, from what she’s been saying.”

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “Well, I just found that out, but — no. That’s what I have been talking about. They need to have their space.”

But she’s still getting used to the idea.

NIKKI GLASER, Comedian: “They call it ‘failure to launch,’ classic Millennial. Millennial traits.

She takes comfort in knowing she’s not alone.

Around 10% of Americans aged 25 to 34 were single and lived with their parents in 2003, comared to nearly 17% in 2019.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 

Questions

One o’clock. Many adult children moved back with their parents in 2020. True or false? Why have they moved back with their parents?

Two-Ten. Had Nikki Glaser worked at a restaurant as a manager and cashier? Is she 24 years old?

Three-Fifteen. Only a few adults live at home with their parents. Is this right or wrong? Has it always been like this or is this a recent trend?

Four-Thirty. Have only single sons and daughters moved back?

Five Forty-Five. Which accommodation is better for Molly Le, an apartment in New York City or her parents’ home?

Six-Fifty. Will Nikki Glaser be living with her parents for the long haul (forever)?

Seven o’clcok. Has everyone or every generation been hit equally hard?

Eight-O-Five. Moving back home has no effect on the rest of the economy. Is this correct or incorrect?

Nine-Twenty. During the pandemic, is it easy to find girlfriends and boyfriends and get married?

Ten-Thirty-Five. Do all parents and children feel the same about living together?

 

January. Describe the traditional family or household in your country.

February. Has it been changing over the years?

March. Do people complain about the situation?

April. I want to live with my parents, forever. Yes or no? What do children and parents desire? What are their goals?

May. What might happen in the future?

June. What is the solution? What can or should people and governments do?