CommonSpace columnist Jen Stout warns that policies dragging young people into further poverty are grinding down any sense of worth
THE average member of the younger generation would need to save PS33 a day for the next 30 years to have any hope of reaching the level of wealth accumulated by their parents’ generation. So concluded John Hills, academic at LSE, in a study two years ago.
This extraordinary figure is just one of the many headline-grabbing figures which have pushed the issue of intergenerational inequality into the limelight in recent years.
Benefiting from soaring house prices and the welfare settlement which is now being torn apart, the baby boomer generation do, statistically, have most of the wealth. It’s a blunt fact that makes the recent budget look all the more unjust.
The Conservatives don’t need youth votes to win – younger people are half as likely to vote as older anyway. The budget reflects this, with under-25s hit hardest by the new measures. The removal of housing benefit for under-21s is particularly harsh, given the context of an enormous crisis in housing supply and affordability.
The Conservatives don’t need youth votes to win – younger people are half as likely to vote as older anyway. The budget reflects this, with under-25s hit hardest by the new measures.
Young and ‘lucky’ enough to be in work? The much-lauded new living wage (mis-named, as it falls short of the actual PS7.85 Living Wage) will not apply to those under 25. 18- to 20-year-olds will continue to earn a pittance on their minimum wage, set at just PS5.30, with rates for under-18s even lower.
Want to study for a degree? In England and Wales even the means-tested maintenance grant will become a loan, meaning that all students will leave after three years with PS51,000 of debt, now that fees are an incredible PS9,000 at most universities. Vocational education across the UK is suffering from massive cuts, and college mergers have proved disastrous.
Retired households have seen their incomes rise by 10 per cent since 2007, while those in their 20s have experienced a prolonged decrease in wages. Spiralling rents take up a huge proportion of our incomes, particularly if you’ve the misfortune to deal with those scummiest of all middle-men – letting agents.
Though the Scottish Government legislated to stop the extortionate fees and bogus charges in this sector, some carry on regardless, bleeding tenants dry while making a tidy profit.
Rent controls which make life in the city manageable in Berlin and Paris are urgently needed here; whether the Scottish Government has the courage to take this step remains to be seen.
Retired households have seen their incomes rise by 10 per cent since 2007, while those in their 20s have experienced a prolonged decrease in wages.
This bleak picture is one which young people are all too aware of. And yet I am frequently surprised at the lack of awareness of this among those over 50 that I talk to. Not all – I know many older people who are acutely aware of what’s going on – but enough to make me wonder.
There is sometimes a dismissiveness and an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude. Perhaps I’ve been unlucky in my encounters, but I’ve got the impression that there’s a real lack of generational solidarity, right at the moment we need it most.
But of course this generational divide can’t be looked at separately from class. Pensioner poverty is a shameful and growing phenomenon. And young people aren’t all screwed – lots of them are very well-off. That’s nothing new, but the problem is that this generational divide exacerbates the class one.
The mechanisms used by the wealthier in society to ensure their offspring succeed are becoming more and more important in deciding where you’ll end up.
State-led redistributive measures are a thing of the past, and now even the safety nets are being pulled away; the result can only be that poor youth become poor elderly, while rich youth succeed.
Britain is undoubtedly rich. In 2014 personal assets rose by PS1.5 trillion. But much of the wealth is in housing and pensions, and these aren’t accessible to many in my generation.
It is easy to feel resentment at this state of affairs. Life on zero hours, with a string of renting nightmares behind and in front of you, and a constant gnawing worry about money, will make encounters with those who enjoy comfortable retirement and several holidays a year slightly difficult.
The mechanisms used by the wealthier in society to ensure their offspring succeed are becoming more and more important in deciding where you’ll end up.
But this will get us nowhere. Just as private sector workers hating their public-sector counterparts for still having some decent conditions and pay is counter-productive, so too is envy of the baby boomers for what they have.
We should all be able to expect decent wages, secure housing and a future that doesn’t terrify us. In voicing these demands we are after all fighting to re-establish what previous generations struggled for themselves.
The austerity narrative pits one group against another, making us believe that what our parents had, we can never aspire to. This damaging and defeatist story must be loudly challenged by all of us, whatever age.