Who’s that 30-year-old in basement?

As a senior in high school, my goal was simple: leave home.

It wasn’t that home was oppressive or that leaving it was easy. I just wanted to go out and prepare to make it on my own.

Hopefully my children are adopting that goal and learning that staying home beyond a certain point is not ideal for anybody.

Although exceptions and special circumstances exist, most parents don’t want a 30-year-old son or daughter living in their basement. Especially one who wastes away in front of a video game, eating complimentary potato chips.

Some parents cripple their children by carrying them too much and for too long.

Leaving home, however, is getting tougher.

“Young people are feeling the full effect of a 30-year shift from an industrial to a technology- and service-based U.S. economy,” says a report from Demos, a non-partisan research group.

The report shows that the combination of declining incomes, growing debt and costs of education, homeownership and health care are conspiring to make this generation the first to not surpass the living standards of their parents.

Consider the following findings:

Between 1975 and 2005, typical earnings for young men (25 to 34) with only a high school diploma fell by 29 percent while women’s declined by 10 percent. Typical earnings for young workers with some college fell 21 percent for men and 6 percent for women. With a college degree, male earnings were flat, but rose 10 percent for women.

The average college graduate has nearly $20,000 in debt. Average credit card debt has increased 47 percent between 1989 and 2004 for young people. Nearly one in five 18- to 24-year-olds is in “debt hardship.”

In 2005, 43 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds spent more than one-third of their pre-tax income on rent, up from 18 percent in 1970.

The people who fought or maintained the home front during World War II built this nation into something great.

My generation has done the opposite. Overall, we have set a poor example and taken questionable actions.

We’re responsible for many of the problems that our children face because we’ve taken the easy way out.

We elect leaders who spend money by borrowing it from the future.

Our penchant for free trade has not been free to those workers whose incomes have declined.

The results of allowing our borders to be overrun are yet to be fully seen.

And giving tax rebates while spending billions of dollars fighting a war is no way to accomplish a mission.

Maybe we deserve a 30-year-old kid in the basement.

On second thought, nobody deserves that!

Scott Morris is managing editor.