7 ms·
40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
- b3ing 9mo agoAny causes? Is it that we are too independent and don’t like collectivism? A conspiracy might say it’s on purpose to have more people pay for things typically bought for a couple. Like everyone having their own house, cable bill, utility bill, water bill, …
- lm28469 9mo ago> too independent individualistic
- nemomarx 9mo agoThe American tendency to move away from family earlier is probably involved.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- tyleo 9mo agoAfter college, I intentionally lived with roommates. The three of us were doing well, having secured jobs at Microsoft and Amazon. Even so, splitting rent, utilities, and furniture was a significant financial advantage and helped set us up for long-term success. We had our disagreements, and eventually a falling out with one roommate, but I’d do it all again. The other roommate and I are life long friends and you learn lessons and form bonds in addition to the financial benefit.
- booleandilemma 9mo ago[flagged]
- g-b-r 9mo agoWant to clarify what you mean?
- booleandilemma 9mo agoWhat I wrote is pretty self-explanatory. It may not be something that everyone likes to hear though.
- rexpop 9mo agoWhat you wrote was vague as hell.
- lm28469 9mo ago> Unrealistic expectations from women And men too... lots of them stay adolescent well into their 30s and require a caregiver or a substitute mom more than a gf/wife. Men exclusively blaming women for their problems tend to be basement dwellers or other kind of failures who don't want to take any responsibility
- bragh 9mo ago> lots of them stay adolescent well into their 30s and require a caregiver or a substitute mom more than a gf/wife What do you actually mean by this part?
- lm28469 9mo agoThey need someone to cook their meals, clean their bedroom, &c. while they spend their whole day on low life activities, they want to be 16 forever and live like when they had a mom to take care of the "annoying" things. I know people my age (30+) who spend 8 hours a day gaming and the rest of their free time collecting pokemon cards, funkopops, scifi books they never read and have the audacity to complain about women not being """traditional""" anymore. They're basically out of shape teenagers with money, and they don't understand why it's not attractive. Some of them actually do live with their parents.
- g-b-r 9mo agoProbably most of all the increase of the age of marriage
- Cthulhu_ 9mo agoWhich I think is a secondary effect of many other things happening; staying in school for longer, much higher cost of living, cultural shifts like being more aware of what is normal and acceptable in a relationship, etc. It's not unusual for people to be in their 30's before finally having some (financial, etc) breathing room to even consider things like marriage / kids.
- g-b-r 9mo agoAlso, but I think that most of all there used to be pressure to get married early
- jltsiren 9mo agoThe population is growing older. Young adults rarely live alone, while retirees often do. There are more old people than there used to be, and people often want to continue living in their own home after their spouse dies.
- latexr 9mo agoIf more people lived together with friends, that’d make a dent in both the housing and loneliness crises.
- lazide 9mo agoThe issue is the number of people who ‘surprise’ you with out of control behaviors that are a huge issue with room mates. And getting out of living situation with someone like that can be extremely difficult. People can seem perfectly fine, until they seem to spontaneously turn into hoarders, or start eating all your food and lying about it, or start being aggressively in your face about a bunch of antagonistic culture bullshit, etc. I think what we’re seeing is Americans increasingly fed up with (or even terrified of) other Americans.
- soulofmischief 9mo agoI moved in with one of my closest friends a few years ago, someone I considered a brother. In less than a year, I got someone to sublet and have not spoken to him since. I had no idea someone could be such a tool.
- latexr 9mo agoThere’s definitely some risk, but the alternative is not a panacea either (high rents, loneliness). You can also get closer to people and enrich your life, and it’s positive to practice tolerance for the behaviours of others (within reason). It’s possible there are more unhinged people today, but I think that’s also a consequence of us spending so much time alone in the first place (and sycophantic bots are only going to make that worse). I was also thinking of everyone, not just US Americans.
- lazide 9mo agoExcept for a very, very small number of people, everyone I've ever known who can afford to not have room mates - doesn't have room mates. Young or old. There is a reason for this, and it isn't because they hate their mental health. The issue here is how hard it is to protect your own mental health when someone else refuses to respect yours, and how a co-living situation can make that hard - because you literally are all up in each others business.
- pavlov 9mo agoIs it a bad thing? People's life choices are their own. 29% seems like a fairly neutral number.
- kevinpacheco 9mo agoIf you own shares in e.g. Costco, a long-term sustained trend of shrinking household sizes might give you pause.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoI own shares of Costco and am a member and I’m not concerned.
- whobre 9mo agoPeople's life choices are their own, but if many people choose to live alone, that objectively affects housing situation in the society.
- sieabahlpark 9mo ago[dead]
- yodsanklai 9mo agoif so many people can afford to live alone, perhaps it means that housing situation isn't that bad? in cities like NYC where rents are high, it's very common to have roommates for instance.
- mellosouls 9mo agoIt's a bad thing if we want a cohesive society or if we wish to maximise well-being (both of which are challenged by people increasing their exposure to solitude and loneliness); and your claim about life choices is only partially true - we are all constrained/guided by genetic and environmental factors.
- Kenji 9mo ago[dead]
- gniv 9mo agoIncidentally, that newsletter has a lot of interesting charts. https://www.apolloacademy.com/the-daily-spark/ https://www.apolloacademy.com/the-daily-spark/
- gniv 9mo agoIt's not a high number when compared to other first-world countries: https://statranker.org/population/top-10-countries-with-highest-share-of-single-person-households-2025/ https://statranker.org/population/top-10-countries-with-high...
- auggierose 9mo agoInteresting that UK is not in the top 10 list. Because of more ethnic diversity, or because they cannot afford single households?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- notahacker 9mo agoRare to live alone in London, even amongst single thirtysomething professionals earning well above median income.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- throw0101a 9mo ago> https://statranker.org/population/top-10-countries-with-highest-share-of-single-person-households-2025/ https://statranker.org/population/top-10-countries-with-high... It's not (just) about the absolute number, but the trend as well; see "Chart 2. Rise of single-person households, 1990–2025".
- onlyrealcuzzo 9mo agoBut it is one of the largest drivers for increased housing demand.
- RobotToaster 9mo agoIs this page just a single chart and a massive legal disclaimer?
- 0dayman 9mo agosad
- JumpCrisscross 9mo agoWhen I was a twentysomething, I had roommates. This saved money on rent and bulk purchases (which let me spend more time having fun and save money) and provided a starter-kit social circle in a new city. It also honed conflict-resolution skills and ability to be civil. And when I got a partner, it made moving in together smoother. Something I’ve noticed recently is many college graduates living alone. That’s fine. But it’s a weird default for early in one’s career. If I had one general piece of advice for anyone starting their career, it would be to seek out a living situation with roommates. Side question: are more college students staying in solo dorms?
- cj 9mo agooh man, you just gave me a flashback to my roommates a decade ago changing my WiFi router password since they thought I was working too much. That was not my finest moment as far as practicing conflict resolution goes :) But that’s also the point. Low risk situation to practice things that later in life become much higher risk. Better to figure out how to cohabitate with a few random roommates than a SO down the road.
- ASalazarMX 9mo agoLiving alone is awesome, but I also had roommates while in university, and despite our differences, that was awesome too, it would have sucked to be alone. I guess living alone can be a sound decision, but it depends on context.
- cdaringe 9mo agoExactly. “I love those **holes” is my fond sentiment. I rarely talk to them anymore but we all still consider each other best friends for life
- OGEnthusiast 9mo agoThere's a huge gamble with roommates that you might be stuck with someone terrible in a year (or longer) lease. Most people who can afford to live alone would prefer to have their own place. This is just a sign that people are getting richer (since this same trend is happening in all first-world countries).
- xnx 9mo agoPart of the "housing crisis" is older Americans aging-in-place and using way more home than they need too. A widow/er might occupy the same suburban single family home in retirement that could house 5 people.
- mindslight 9mo agoFor sure, but this is tied into the elder care crisis. My aunt is the sole occupant of a gigantic "2 family" [0]. Not even in the suburbs, but in what you'd describe as a small city downtown. She toys with the idea of assisted living, but the deal basically seems to be trading her house to buy in, and then a huge monthly ongoing fee. And we all know once you're in such a place, the rosy marketing about the care you're going to get never really pans out. Whereas she gets the full attention of the hired helper who comes by twice a week. At this point I think she's well past assisted living, and relies on being in a familiar environment. So those concerns plus the non-winning finances, my advice is to stay there as long as she can. Because from what I've seen of nursing homes, they're basically grueling slow-motion assisted suicide. [0] It's actually 3 units, one in a state of paused remodel. I haven't been able to tell if it started its life as 2 units each with an upstairs and downstairs and a shared stairway, or as 4 separate units even.
- xnx 9mo agoGreat example. It's a shame the switching costs are so high, and the availability of appropriately-sized housing so low that she can't downsize in a financially advantageous way.
- mindslight 9mo agoFrom the patterns I've seen there are roughly two buckets of people. Some get ahead of this when they're still quite young, embrace "retirement" and "downsizing", etc. This makes the switching costs worth it - they're paying to start a new deliberate life. And others just want to stay in their same home they know and love even as they slow down and do less and less. I myself feel I'm going to be in this latter camp, and I don't know what I'd do differently to change that. I wrote another comment elsewhere in this topic about the lack of multi-generation households, and I feel that is directly part of the problem here too. Of course it's a very tall ask to expect your kid(s) to stick around in the American individualist culture. Although the economics of this might change with where we're headed...
- CalRobert 9mo agoEven as new homes are much bigger than decades past…
- joshstrange 9mo agoI'm building a house currently and I really wish there were more options to have the things I want without needing all the extra space in places I don't care about. The problem is, even if I was able to build such a house (I'm using a large builder, this is not a fully custom house) the resale prospects would be poor.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- silexia 9mo agoThe best thing I ever did for my mental health was to start having children. Humans, like every other living creature, are hardwired by billions of years of evolution to reproduce.
- polishdude20 9mo agoWhat specifically do you think helped?
- johnea 9mo agoSo what? After living with parents, roommates, spouses and others for most of my life, I'm super happy to live alone. Has anyone stopped to think that possibly people live alone because that's what they want to do? I can only think of a quote from one of my favorite youtube videos of all time: "The monkey's feel alone, all 6 billion of them..." From: Ernest Cline's spoken word reading of Dance Monkey, Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQOdNY-HdG0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQOdNY-HdG0 Watch it, it's worth it...
- bradlys 9mo agoWhy are people complaining about this? It's not even that high of an amount compared to several other developed nations. It's not a recent trend either. It's been going on for over 30 years. No one here seems to care about the objective number (40 million) - they instead care about the relative amount (29%). If you look at the graph and track the percent, it's been at or over 25% since 1990. Having your share go from 25% to 29% in 35 years is not really that meaningful. This isn't a new phenomenon in the US. The graph sucks because it hides the fact that the US population has been growing steadily.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- spwa4 9mo agoAt least in my city, this is obviously the big reason behind the housing crisis.
- snapplebobapple 9mo agoIt's weird to see people discussing this from a "we're richer so we live alone because roommates are risky" angle instead of the actual angle of this being an indicator of the slow death of society because it indicates the increasing number of people that never grew up, formed a pair bond and had kids (and also the failure of many of those pair bonds ending in divorce and one or both sides of the pair living alone depending on if they had kids or not.