The Fact
In a Pew Research Center survey conducted September 2–8, 2025, 54% of U.S. adults ages 40–49 met Pew’s definition of the sandwich generation: they had a living parent age 65 or older and also had either a child younger than 18, an adult child they had financially supported in the prior year, or both.
What This Means
More than half of Americans in their 40s were simultaneously positioned between an aging parent and dependent or financially supported children. That makes the family-support question a normal midlife condition for this age group rather than a fringe circumstance.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, “More than half of Americans in their 40s are sandwiched between an aging parent and their own children,” published August 27, 2026; survey conducted Sept. 2–8, 2025.