Goodbye, empty nest: Millennials staying longer with parents

For the first time on record, living with parents is now the most common arrangement for people ages 18 to 34, an analysis of census data by the Pew Research Center has found.

The pattern may be a contributing factor in the sluggish growth of the U.S. economy, which depends heavily on consumer spending.

With more young people living with their parents rather than on their own, fewer people need to buy appliances, furniture or cable subscriptions.

Other factors contributing to the trend of living with parents range from rising apartment rents to heavy student-debt loads to longer periods in college.

Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, says soaring rents are discouraging some millennials from leaving their parents' homes.

Heavier student debt loads have sent more young people back to their parents' nests, according to research last year by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.