I think this betrays the severity of the issue there. There are plenty of people making ad-hoc roommate arrangements to deal with sharing resources/reducing exp

I think this betrays the severity of the issue there. There are plenty of people making ad-hoc roommate arrangements to deal with sharing resources/reducing expenses, but instead of pairs it's threes or more. It's not like being a two-person arrangement reduces expenses by such a magical amount that now the old model of finances works. The amount of people I am seeing being a married couple with a live-in tenant is pretty high, and they are still renting. I feel strongly that it is generally even more risky nowadays to be in a two-person fixed relationship before you have achieved some sort of stability. A single person can couch surf/live in their car/effectively be homeless and still get back on their feet. It has taken me til 30 to feel like I had gotten to a place where if my partner took a fall at work I could cover both parties modest expenses among student loans and other debt, even though I am not holding any extraneousness debt aside from student loans. A pooled income of two working and healthy people is still insufficient to mitigate enough risk before they can weather multiple setbacks and still pay student loans and start to form a family. What is the median income? $53,891 (http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/20/news/economy/median-income/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/20/news/economy/median-income/)? Even ballpark estimates makes me feel just as safe trying to make do with half that than with that.