Americans are getting married, having kids, buying a home, and retiring years later than what once was the norm. Many don’t ever reach these milestones.
While there is a complex web of factors that go into decisions like having kids or buying a house, a person’s financial situation often plays an major role. In a May Harris/Guardian poll, six out of 10 Americans said that the economy had affected at least one of their major life goals, because of either a lack of affordability or anxiety about where the economy is heading.
The Guardian heard from hundreds of readers who shared their stories about how the current economic and political climate has put some of their biggest life decisions on hold.
For Martha Knight, the idea of having kids has been a complicated one. In terms of finances, home ownership seems far out of reach. Home prices in Louisville, Kentucky, have soared over the years. While prices are cheaper outside the city in more rural areas of the state, a move would affect their jobs in education and healthcare.
And both Knight and her husband have student loan debt. Instability around forgiveness programs have made them question how long it will take them to pay off their debt.
“We made peace with the fact that we will probably rent our whole lives, and we’re OK with that,” Knight, 34, said. “That’s where we are.”
Besides owning a home to raise a family, there are also deeper questions: What would it be like to raise a child in the world we live in now?
It’s a hard question for Knight, who is from eastern Kentucky along the Appalachian mountains. Kentucky is her home state, it’s where she and her husband grew up. But she doesn’t see it as a place where she can raise a family.
In 2023, the US fertility rate dropped to its lowest point in almost a century.
“We are one of the highest states for child hunger, for the foster care system, things like that,” Knight said. “If we ever have a child, if we are fortunate enough for that to happen, we are really hoping to give them a better future. We want them to grow up with the idea of possibility. As the state is currently, Kentucky doesn’t offer that.”
Anxiety about the future didn’t start under Trump’s second administration. The pandemic threw the economy into a tailspin. While the stock market soared, inflation hit a generational high in 2022, and Americans are still feeling the pain of higher bills. And even though mortgage rates have climbed with higher interest rates, housing prices still remain at record highs.
In other words, it’s been hard to catch a break. Although Trump promised to provide economic relief, the administration has caused widespread uncertainty for some respondents with his erratic tariff policies and attacks on minority groups and reproductive rights.
Danielle, 35, who requested to be identified by her first name only, said that she’s held off on buying a home and having kids given the instability.
“I love the community I built here, but as a queer person, I’ve been hesitant to buy a home and even have kids due to rigid abortion bans and economic instability,” said Danielle, who currently lives in Austin, Texas. “This is no longer the country I knew nor grew up in. The American Dream is a farce.”
While student loan debt has been a huge barrier to home ownership for many millennials, the Save plan, the Biden administration’s hallmark loan forgiveness program, allowed Stephen Buechel-Rieger, 32, of Cincinnati, Ohio and his partner to purchase their first home.
Their goal was to eventually purchase a larger home to accommodate a growing family, but “we have been delaying moving from our first home to our forever home,” Buechel-Rieger said.
“Now because of the increase in student loan payments, uncertainty of the future of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, stubborn interest rates and uncertainty in the medical field, we cannot take the financial risk,” Buechel-Rieger said.
High home prices don’t just affect millennial buyers. William Pollard Jr, 71, said he and his wife have been wanting to move out of Florida to live closer to family, but prices have been too high to buy a new home.
“With the stock and bond markets bouncing everywhere, we cannot put together an account to buy a house elsewhere. The markets need to be stable, so we can build more wealth,” Pollard said. “I am very frustrated at having to put a major goal on hold for who knows how long … I am getting no younger. We want to live the rest of our years near family and friends.”
Many Americans also said that they were holding off on big purchases, which may not appear to hold the weight of major life decisions, but also play a huge role in people’s lives.
Hunter Gale, 39, of Kansas City, Missouri, said his wife is expecting in September, and the family is hoping to purchase a car that will be safer for their new baby. Uncertainty around tariffs, along with the higher cost of baby products, have made it harder to get a better car.
“While we are fortunate to have stable jobs and a home that can fit our expanding family, it is stressful knowing costs for essentials for our baby will be higher,” Gale said.
When people buy homes and have kids later in life, that often pushes up the retirement age. It’s no surprise, then, that the average age of retirement was 62 in 2024 – five years older than what it was three decades ago. And many Americans continue to hold it off because of economic anxiety.
Swantje Agápe, 57, of San Jose, California, said that she and her husband were looking to retire in the next year, but “politically and economically things are too unstable”.
“We are no longer confident that three retirement funds and plans we have will be sufficient,” Agápe said. “We are both feeling quite sad and frustrated. After working hard all our lives, we were both really looking forward to an early-ish retirement.”
Diane Alaine Bates, 65, of Kenmore, Washington, said that she similarly had been delaying retirement for months because of the instability.
“I’ve been scared since the election that tariffs will cause a recession,” Bates said. “I need to know if my 401(k) is going to be stable enough to retire.”
People delaying these major life decisions don’t just affect individual lives. On a societal level, the impacts are huge. When people retire later, that leaves less room for younger workers to move up in the workforce. When birth rates drop, it can lead to an ageing population that puts a strain on the healthcare system.
And philosophically, it seems to raise questions about agency and freedom. What happens when people feel like larger political and economic forces are controlling their lives?
For some, the solution is to leave. Many told the Guardian that they were making plans to leave the country, but for those who don’t have foreign passports, crossing state lines appears to be the next best option.
Knight said that she and her husband plan to leave Kentucky for Washington state, which they hope will be a better environment for their family.
“We have specifically chosen a blue state that offers some social safety nets. In Washington, they have state paid parental leave, you know, things that will help us hopefully find our feet,” Knight said. “It’s the choice of: do we stay? Do we stay with our community? Do we stay with our families? Or, for our future, do we move and give ourselves a better chance?”
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