(Bloomberg View) — How much do millennials love their parents? Do snake people enjoy basements?

These are not questions that a new Pew Research Center report seeks to answer. But it may shed some light on them nonetheless. Pew's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data finds that in spite of an improved labor market, "the nation's 18- to 34-year-olds are less likely to be living independently of their families and establishing their own households today than they were in the depths of the Great Recession."

The unemployment rate for 18- to 34-year-olds has decreased from its 2010 peak, while median weekly earnings for workers in that age group have risen marginally from a 2012 nadir. Yet the share of young adults living independently – that is, "in a household headed by the adult, his or her spouse or unmarried partner, or some other person not related to the adult" — was 67 percent in the first four months of 2015, down from 69 percent in 2010 and 71 percent in 2007. Likewise, 26 percent of young adults were living in a parent's home in the first third of this year, up from 24 percent in 2010 and 22 percent in 2007.