More Parents Are Financially Supporting Adult Children: Why It’s a Problem

Supporting adult children comes at a high cost. 

And an increasing number of parents are finding themselves doing just that.

Here are some of the key findings of the 2025 Savings.com report:

• Half of parents with adult children provide regular financial assistance to their grown kids. 
• The average monthly support per adult child is $1,474, approximately 6% higher than last year. (Note – this equates to almost $18,000 a year)
• 83% of supporting parents contribute to their adult kids’ monthly groceries; 65% help with cell phones, and nearly half (46%) pay for vacations.¹

Now, here are the highly problematic findings:

• Nearly 50 percent of parents have sacrificed their financial security to help their grown children financially, and most supporting parents feel obligated to assist their children financially.
• Working parents who support their grown children contribute over twice as much money each month to their adult children as they do to retirement funds.²

According to the Savings.com report, “The psychological and fiscal impact of such commitment translates directly to parental anxiety. At a time when many Americans haven’t set aside enough funds for their later years, 79 percent of those supporting adult children worry about setting themselves up for a comfortable retirement.”³

In addition, “Nearly 50 percent of providing parents sacrifice financial security for the sake of supported children, and 40 percent felt pressured to give financial assistance even when it meant uncomfortably stretching their resources. […] Specifically, more than 60 percent of parents would be willing to live a more frugal lifestyle to support their adult children, half would pull money from their savings or retirement accounts, and one-third would postpone retirement or take on debt so that they might shift funds to provide for their progeny.”⁴

The report also found that many parents would even be willing to come out of retirement to help their adult children financially. 

Read on to see why we feel this is a problem.

To continue reading, click here to view the full article.

Content and images provided by https://www.401kmaneuver.com/

1. https://www.savings.com/insights/financial-support-for-adult-children-study ↩︎
2. https://www.savings.com/insights/financial-support-for-adult-children-study ↩︎
3. https://www.savings.com/insights/financial-support-for-adult-children-study ↩︎
4. https://www.savings.com/insights/financial-support-for-adult-children-study ↩︎