Economic statistics will never fully capture the extent of the sacrifices of Britain’s youth during the pandemic. For a generation of students and pupils it was a lost chance to make friends, explore who they are and, gradually, become adults — as well as to learn, in person. In the face of the deaths in the broader population, it is easy to dismiss as frivolous the setbacks of those who missed partying, travelling and dating during the long months stuck inside but these are still years of carefree youth they will not get back. What is more, most of these privations were primarily to protect those from older generations, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
It is therefore disappointing that through its choice of tax and spending priorities the British government has called on the young to sacrifice even more. Chiefly the government is freezing the income level at which graduates will be asked to start paying back their student loans. Inflation will therefore draw many, not very well-paid, graduates into repayment — equivalent to an increase in income tax of around 9 per cent a year. A combination of such “stealth taxes” and the increase in National Insurance mean that the Intergenerational Foundation, a think-tank, estimates the disposable income of a typical 27-year-old graduate will fall by close to 30 per cent over four years as a cost of living crisis looms.
The Financial Times called for a New Deal for the Young last year, focusing on jobs, education, pensions, housing and taxation. Many of the contributing factors predated the pandemic — rising asset prices, for one, that priced young people out of home ownership. Most have, however, only intensified. House prices have reached new record highs, for example. Moreover, while the recovery in the UK jobs market has been strong and there is now even talk of labour shortages in some sectors, average real wages are still declining. For young Britons this is a familiar story — from after the 2008 financial crisis and the aftermath of the Brexit referendum — of missed opportunities and a loss of lifetime earning power.
Stories of intergenerational strife can be overdone. Young people do not want to see older generations driven into penury and the rise in National Insurance, intended to fund social care and clear the post-pandemic backlog in the NHS, will be welcomed by some as a necessary step in ensuring that their parents and grandparents have dignity in their old age. A rise in income tax, however, would be more progressive — taking from higher earners at a greater rate — as well as applying to the incomes of those who have retired. In the longer run, the structure of the tax system should be reconsidered.
The combination of declining wages, higher taxes and rising house prices — supported by demand subsidies such as the government’s help to buy equity loan scheme — will put the economic security of home ownership further out of reach for many. Responses such as taking a risky punt on cryptocurrency or choosing not to have children are understandable reactions, but they represent a failure of a decade of government policy. Higher interest rates, while they may reduce house prices — or more likely just moderate the rate of increase — are intended to reduce the rate of wage growth and damp the labour market on which all but the richest young people depend.
It is far past time for the government to heed calls for a New Deal for the Young. Justice alone, given the sacrifices involved in protecting older people during the pandemic, calls for more to be done to heal the compact between the generations: the young cannot keep being asked to foot the bill.
It’s important not to let anyone claim it’s an accident or bad luck or Covid or not anyone’s fault – it’s been a deliberate set of policy choices that mostly led it to this point.
Every generation after boomers has been poorer. Because that’s what boomers have purposly voted for. Its the reason why you have 9k tuitions, why wages have not risen properly for decades, why housing is ridiculous high, in terms of buying and renting. Boomers literally voted for this.
I’m nearly in my mid 30s and I’m extreeeeemly lucky to have bought a house a few years ago. Had a waited 6 months later, I’d have been priced out. I have no idea how people younger than will afford rent in the near future…. never mind getting on the housing ladder. I’m in a small city in the east midlands and rent in nearing £750 in what people consider the bad part of the city. Want a mediocre house in a mediocre neighbourhood… And your talking over 1k these days.
The energy rise is really concerning. This country likes to tell you that it’s happening everywhere, which is true. What they don’t say is countries like France capped their rise at 4% whilst the UK capped theirs at 54%. So much for our new found freedom eh?. Everyone is going to be forced to have a £200 loan soon which will be paid back (even by the young people that didn’t have homes or weren’t renting at the time). Your basically subsiding old people here yet again.
If you want things to change your gonna need to start voting because the boomers and the tories will be the death of you all. And I don’t say that as a joke either.
*Maybe* we’ll start voting en masse and change things. Hilarious how many people may age say voting does nothing when the demographic that votes the most and for a particular party who are in power constantly get things in their favour.
But who cares, because woke agenda warriors (or whatever the word salad is today) want to ban Churchill!1
Then vote, if you’re under 30 and too apathetic to vote then fully expect to reap what you sow.
Which means it was the worst outcome in the study…
Oh. 🙁
Of course.. but don’t blame your parents or grandparents. Blame the rich because they are the people who have fucked your generation over
I read a really interesting article that was warning that when the boomer population die off and millennials become the “main” generation in their 50s and 60s the country is going to going through an anarchist politics shift. The boomers and their parents who saw massive economic growth have spent the last 30/40 years voting/making economic moves to protect their small fortunes (becoming lardlords etc). This has made them fairly predictable and from a political point quite easy to manipulate. when you get a generation who never amassed any wealth and in the majority of cases actually got poorer as they grew older, they will be very unpredictable and approach politics/economics with a “nothing to loose” attitude which is going to make for quite an interesting future
I graduated with a Masters in 95, started on about 18, was on 27 in about 18 months. But it wasn’t a job really relevant to my academics so that’s entirely equivalent. And that’s over 25 years ago….
People really need to watch this lecture to understand why this is the case, it explains a great number of things.
Not just the young also the old as well, depending what assets you have or don’t have
I dunno. They might get more flexible hours, less commuting. I am confident that we will lick global warming with nuclear fusion power. Less kids means more job security. AI is coming in, robots in factories, cheaper stuff.
This isnt news. The way social welfare works is to pay pensions for boomers, whilst they get a double pension from pensions and leasing to the young. That and they have completely fucked up the environment.
A future in poverty would be a better way to put it. Poorer implies they could still be well off, just not as well as previous generations. Which we all know isn’t the case. Health care crisis of an aging population, energy crisis, climate crisis, potential war crisis, Brexit.
Get your skill up folks.
As a 28 year old, my future is fucked. Zero hour contracted worker, the chances of me even owning a flat are slim. Worse, as a renter, the bank may decide that a mortage isn’t available because apparently, you’re deemed unreliable for paying rent. Even worse, I don’t ever expect to be able to retire. At best, late 70s. At worse, I fucking work until one day, my body goes “Yep, we’re done.”
​
Oh and not to mention arseholes like that person who told us that we should drop everything and exist to work if we want to own property. If I got rid of everything I owned, I would be a miserable bastard. It still wouldn’t be enough to start saving and i don’t see why people should basically, sacrifice their mental health via exisiting in a state where they get up, get ready for work, work, come home, have nothing to pass the time with, sleep and repeat.
Yes, that’s what boomers have been voting for for over 20 years. And everyone under 40 and over 40 is more concerned about looking after pensioners than calling out that bullshit.
To be completely blunt, I think the young flagellated themselves during the pandemic, all to help keep a demographic of people alive that will stab the young in the back next election.
As for the possibility of things getting better, I’m not holding my breath. A crisis no one seems to want to talk about is the aging population of the UK (and most other well-to-do countries for that matter). Old people overwhelmingly vote Tory, and as the population ages, the more Tories there are. I believe we’re sleepwalking into a gerontocracy, a country for old people, by old people, if we’re not already there. I believe that, short of a massive seismic shift, the old will continue bleeding the young dry more and more as time goes on. Take a look at Japan for the future – schools are being torn down for nursing homes, and the working hours there are only getting more and more stressful, leading to high suicide rates.
19 comments
Graduate salary in 2008 = £25k
Graduate salary in 2022 = £25k
Young people are fucked.
Economic statistics will never fully capture the extent of the sacrifices of Britain’s youth during the pandemic. For a generation of students and pupils it was a lost chance to make friends, explore who they are and, gradually, become adults — as well as to learn, in person. In the face of the deaths in the broader population, it is easy to dismiss as frivolous the setbacks of those who missed partying, travelling and dating during the long months stuck inside but these are still years of carefree youth they will not get back. What is more, most of these privations were primarily to protect those from older generations, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
It is therefore disappointing that through its choice of tax and spending priorities the British government has called on the young to sacrifice even more. Chiefly the government is freezing the income level at which graduates will be asked to start paying back their student loans. Inflation will therefore draw many, not very well-paid, graduates into repayment — equivalent to an increase in income tax of around 9 per cent a year. A combination of such “stealth taxes” and the increase in National Insurance mean that the Intergenerational Foundation, a think-tank, estimates the disposable income of a typical 27-year-old graduate will fall by close to 30 per cent over four years as a cost of living crisis looms.
The Financial Times called for a New Deal for the Young last year, focusing on jobs, education, pensions, housing and taxation. Many of the contributing factors predated the pandemic — rising asset prices, for one, that priced young people out of home ownership. Most have, however, only intensified. House prices have reached new record highs, for example. Moreover, while the recovery in the UK jobs market has been strong and there is now even talk of labour shortages in some sectors, average real wages are still declining. For young Britons this is a familiar story — from after the 2008 financial crisis and the aftermath of the Brexit referendum — of missed opportunities and a loss of lifetime earning power.
Stories of intergenerational strife can be overdone. Young people do not want to see older generations driven into penury and the rise in National Insurance, intended to fund social care and clear the post-pandemic backlog in the NHS, will be welcomed by some as a necessary step in ensuring that their parents and grandparents have dignity in their old age. A rise in income tax, however, would be more progressive — taking from higher earners at a greater rate — as well as applying to the incomes of those who have retired. In the longer run, the structure of the tax system should be reconsidered.
The combination of declining wages, higher taxes and rising house prices — supported by demand subsidies such as the government’s help to buy equity loan scheme — will put the economic security of home ownership further out of reach for many. Responses such as taking a risky punt on cryptocurrency or choosing not to have children are understandable reactions, but they represent a failure of a decade of government policy. Higher interest rates, while they may reduce house prices — or more likely just moderate the rate of increase — are intended to reduce the rate of wage growth and damp the labour market on which all but the richest young people depend.
It is far past time for the government to heed calls for a New Deal for the Young. Justice alone, given the sacrifices involved in protecting older people during the pandemic, calls for more to be done to heal the compact between the generations: the young cannot keep being asked to foot the bill.
It’s important not to let anyone claim it’s an accident or bad luck or Covid or not anyone’s fault – it’s been a deliberate set of policy choices that mostly led it to this point.
Every generation after boomers has been poorer. Because that’s what boomers have purposly voted for. Its the reason why you have 9k tuitions, why wages have not risen properly for decades, why housing is ridiculous high, in terms of buying and renting. Boomers literally voted for this.
I’m nearly in my mid 30s and I’m extreeeeemly lucky to have bought a house a few years ago. Had a waited 6 months later, I’d have been priced out. I have no idea how people younger than will afford rent in the near future…. never mind getting on the housing ladder. I’m in a small city in the east midlands and rent in nearing £750 in what people consider the bad part of the city. Want a mediocre house in a mediocre neighbourhood… And your talking over 1k these days.
The energy rise is really concerning. This country likes to tell you that it’s happening everywhere, which is true. What they don’t say is countries like France capped their rise at 4% whilst the UK capped theirs at 54%. So much for our new found freedom eh?. Everyone is going to be forced to have a £200 loan soon which will be paid back (even by the young people that didn’t have homes or weren’t renting at the time). Your basically subsiding old people here yet again.
If you want things to change your gonna need to start voting because the boomers and the tories will be the death of you all. And I don’t say that as a joke either.
*Maybe* we’ll start voting en masse and change things. Hilarious how many people may age say voting does nothing when the demographic that votes the most and for a particular party who are in power constantly get things in their favour.
But who cares, because woke agenda warriors (or whatever the word salad is today) want to ban Churchill!1
Then vote, if you’re under 30 and too apathetic to vote then fully expect to reap what you sow.
https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/age-and-voting-behaviour-at-the-2019-general-election/#.YhBk_OjP02w
Hey they used my age, 27, as the example…
Which means it was the worst outcome in the study…
Oh. 🙁
Of course.. but don’t blame your parents or grandparents. Blame the rich because they are the people who have fucked your generation over
I read a really interesting article that was warning that when the boomer population die off and millennials become the “main” generation in their 50s and 60s the country is going to going through an anarchist politics shift. The boomers and their parents who saw massive economic growth have spent the last 30/40 years voting/making economic moves to protect their small fortunes (becoming lardlords etc). This has made them fairly predictable and from a political point quite easy to manipulate. when you get a generation who never amassed any wealth and in the majority of cases actually got poorer as they grew older, they will be very unpredictable and approach politics/economics with a “nothing to loose” attitude which is going to make for quite an interesting future
I graduated with a Masters in 95, started on about 18, was on 27 in about 18 months. But it wasn’t a job really relevant to my academics so that’s entirely equivalent. And that’s over 25 years ago….
People really need to watch this lecture to understand why this is the case, it explains a great number of things.
https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A
Not just the young also the old as well, depending what assets you have or don’t have
I dunno. They might get more flexible hours, less commuting. I am confident that we will lick global warming with nuclear fusion power. Less kids means more job security. AI is coming in, robots in factories, cheaper stuff.
This isnt news. The way social welfare works is to pay pensions for boomers, whilst they get a double pension from pensions and leasing to the young. That and they have completely fucked up the environment.
A future in poverty would be a better way to put it. Poorer implies they could still be well off, just not as well as previous generations. Which we all know isn’t the case. Health care crisis of an aging population, energy crisis, climate crisis, potential war crisis, Brexit.
Get your skill up folks.
As a 28 year old, my future is fucked. Zero hour contracted worker, the chances of me even owning a flat are slim. Worse, as a renter, the bank may decide that a mortage isn’t available because apparently, you’re deemed unreliable for paying rent. Even worse, I don’t ever expect to be able to retire. At best, late 70s. At worse, I fucking work until one day, my body goes “Yep, we’re done.”
​
Oh and not to mention arseholes like that person who told us that we should drop everything and exist to work if we want to own property. If I got rid of everything I owned, I would be a miserable bastard. It still wouldn’t be enough to start saving and i don’t see why people should basically, sacrifice their mental health via exisiting in a state where they get up, get ready for work, work, come home, have nothing to pass the time with, sleep and repeat.
Yes, that’s what boomers have been voting for for over 20 years. And everyone under 40 and over 40 is more concerned about looking after pensioners than calling out that bullshit.
To be completely blunt, I think the young flagellated themselves during the pandemic, all to help keep a demographic of people alive that will stab the young in the back next election.
As for the possibility of things getting better, I’m not holding my breath. A crisis no one seems to want to talk about is the aging population of the UK (and most other well-to-do countries for that matter). Old people overwhelmingly vote Tory, and as the population ages, the more Tories there are. I believe we’re sleepwalking into a gerontocracy, a country for old people, by old people, if we’re not already there. I believe that, short of a massive seismic shift, the old will continue bleeding the young dry more and more as time goes on. Take a look at Japan for the future – schools are being torn down for nursing homes, and the working hours there are only getting more and more stressful, leading to high suicide rates.