"The percentage of American adults who are living with their parents has reached its highest level in 75 years."

The headline on Drudge states: “Baby boomers far more entitled than millennials.” However, the millennials may be more talk than action:

Young Americans are constantly told by the media — and, sometimes, their own parents — that they think the world owes them a favor.

Millennials say people should be able to pay for their own housing at 22 years of age, pay for their own car at 20.5 years of age and be responsible for their own cell phone plan at 18.5 years of age, according to a new study from personal-finance site Bankrate.com.

In all three cases, the younger cohort’s average response is about a year and a half earlier than when baby boomers feel these three landmarks of financial independence should happen.

“Millennials are often stereotyped as being entitled,” Sarah Berger, a columnist and analyst at Bankrate.com, said in a statement on the survey released Wednesday. “It’s refreshing to see that millennials really do have high expectations of gaining financial independence and getting off their parents’ payroll….”

Other studies show what millennials think they should do and what they actually do are two different things. The percentage of American adults who are living with their parents has reached its highest level in 75 years.

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance between what millennials say is the right time to become independent and when they do. That said, the area of the country one lives in could have something to do with staying on the payroll longer:

The survey tapped a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults. Those respondents living in the Northeast said parents should help with housing costs until their children are 24.5 years of age. That was two years longer than for Midwesterners, 1.5 years longer than for Southerners and about a year longer than for those who live on the West Coast.

Housing in the Northeast is astronomical and Northeasterners often have to pay higher costs for schooling so it’s no wonder that many millennials need help. The problem comes in when millennials take advantage of that help and don’t try their best to eventually leave the nest or when parents use their resources to enable or control rather than help their child learn to make it on his or her own. It’s tough these days for a lot of people, old and young and it’s a fine line knowing when to help or when to let go.