As Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge points out, this is a true measure of the economy. I have a question, is living in the basement part of hope or change?

The True State Of The Economy: Record Number Of College Graduates Live In Their Parents’ Basement

Scratch one more bullish thesis for the housing recovery, and the economic recovery in general.

Over the past several years, optimists had often cited household formation as a key component of pent up demand for home purchases. So much for that.

Recall that last August, the WSJ noted that in a report on the status of families, “the Census Bureau said 13.6% of Americans ages 25 to 34 were living with their parents in 2012, up slightly from 13.4% in 2011. Though the trend began before the recession, it accelerated sharply during the downturn. In the early 2000s, about 10% of people in this age group lived at home.” It concluded, quite logically, that “the share of young adults living with their parents edged up last year despite improvements in the economy—a sign that the effects of the recession are lingering.”

Of course, the “improvements in the economy” were once again confused with the ongoing Fed- and corporate buyback-driven surge in the stock market, which has since been refuted to have any relationship to underlying economic conditions, and instead is merely the key factor leading to record class disparity – a very heated topic among both politicians and economists in recent months.

But going back to the topic of Americans living with their parents, today Gallup reported that 14% percent of adults between the ages of 24 and 34 – those in the post-college years when most young adults are trying to establish independence — report living at home with their parents. By contrast, roughly half of 18- to 23-year-olds, many of whom are still finishing their education, are currently living at home.