They're never going to leave, you know. Those adult sons and daughters of yours who live in the basement. The food is too good, the accommodations too agreeable, and the alternatives too stark.

Forty-five percent of parents over 45 now provide some financial support to their grown kids. And fully one-third either help pay their adult children's rent or let the kids live at home.

Those are not just trends; they're facts of life. The unemployment rate in September among workers aged 29 and younger was 13 percent.

You do the math.

Basement Kids aren't a new phenomenon, of course. Back in the 1960s lots of college students who stayed in school for six years to avoid the draft preferred Mom's cooking to dormitory food. Some of them eventually moved out, of course, but others stayed behind and became Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Yet the current generation of Basement Kids seems less promising. Many are Discouraged Workers, defined as unemployed folks who have given up looking. That's a lot easier to do when there's meatloaf in the oven and your dad's Chevron credit card in your wallet.

My wife and I have friends in their 50s who are hosting their divorced son, his three children, two dogs and a cat - all of whom are bedded down in the den that Dad built for himself just before they moved in. The couple has one-third the space and one-quarter the disposable income they did when they were 35.

Moral suasion is unlikely to empty the nest again, but company sometimes works. Another couple we know informed their adult daughter that Grandma would be moving in to share the space which the young woman occupied in the basement.

The kid was out within the week.

House Rules also sometimes work. There's perverse pleasure, after all, in telling your 30-year-old son that he has an 11 p.m. curfew and can't bring women home without your permission.

But you and I both know that sometimes there's no alternative to the Winnebago Solution. That's informing your resident guests that you and the missus are taking the Mini Winnie off on an extensive tour of the Southwest, and bringing your money with you. Your son or daughter are, of course, welcome to stay in the house - if they pay rent.

But the Winnebago Solution is only as good as the job market. Otherwise, after your return there's a distinct possibility that your Boomerang Kids will boomerang again.

Great incentive, isn't it, to stay on the road?

Steve Crump may be reached at 735-3223. Hear him on KLIX-1310 at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.