ShareThisDanny Guo came marching home two years ago as a corporal from the U.S. Marine Corps, thinking the country he served would be a land of instant job opportunity.
He was a radio operator. Plenty of work in that field, he thought.
After hoofing the pavement for dozens of interviews that left him the choice of flipping burgers or filing papers, he did what more young people are doing now than at any time since the 1950s: He moved back in with his parents.
Now, at 23 years old, Guo is changing his career goal to interior design -- grateful that his old bedroom in Alameda, Calif., is available while he regroups.
"Two out of every five of my friends are living at home, too," said Guo, who is attending Academy of Art University in San Francisco. "So at least I know I'm not alone."
The U.S. Census Bureau says that from 2007, just before the recession hit, to 2010, a year after the recession officially ended, the number of adults ages 25 to 34 living with their parents shot up 26 percent, from 4.7 million to 5.9 million.
Unemployment for adults younger than 24 is double the national mark of 9.1 percent. According to a Purdue University study, more than two-thirds of parents are giving their grown children financial assistance, double the rate of 20 years ago.
Combined with AFL-CIO research showing only 31 percent of workers under 35 can both pay their bills and save money, down from 53 percent in 1999, the figures paint a picture that is bleaker for young people than at any time since Dwight Eisenhower was president, experts say.
"We've seen these kinds of trends in other recessions, but nothing as serious as this in the past few generations," said University of California, Berkeley sociology professor Claude Fischer.
Census and Labor Department statistics show that median household income in the country fell every year in the past decade, plummeting 7.1 percent between 2000 and 2010 to $49,445.
Young people, with fewer skills and less seniority, feel the hammer of economic downturns more than their elders, said Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, psychology professor at Clark University in Massachusetts.
"So what do you do if you're 30, or 25, and you've been unemployed for a few years and your unemployment runs out?" Arnett said. "If you're single, I don't know what else you'd do than what all these young people are doing. You move home, or you become homeless."
Arnett said that if the trend persists, it will dial back the societal clock about 60 years.
"Really, until the 1960s and beyond, the great majority of young people lived at home until they got married," Arnett said. "In 1960, the median age of women getting married was 20, and now it's 26. For men it was 22, now 28.
"It wasn't unusual back then for women to be engaged in high school. Now, I think most parents might be horrified at that."
Moving back home isn't necessarily bad.
It can bring back old bickerings over laundry, messy rooms and wandering in late, but those conflicts take on a different form when everyone is an adult, experts say.
"We have a great time together," said Mandy Durkin, 27, who returned to her parents' house in Fairfield, Calif., last winter.
Durkin, recently married and carrying a bachelor's degree in theology and English from the University of San Diego, ran up against the terrible job market.
"I felt like I had a degree, so I could get a job anywhere," Durkin said. "But the job I finally got offered was as an office receptionist at minimum wage -- and that was after they had 600 resumes come in."
Her husband, Navy veteran Brian Durkin, began going to flight school while she veered into a career as a personal fitness trainer. Then he needed to go to New Mexico last winter to finish his schooling.
The choice was to ditch the new career or pay double rent while her husband got his pilot's license, so Durkin took option three: Move home until Brian finishes up in the Southwest this fall.
"I run my house one way, and my mom likes to run hers another way, so there's been a little adjustment," Durkin said. "She likes to clear the dishes right away. I don't. We work it out. No big deal."
E-mail Kevin Fagan at kfagan(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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