To think that despite the economy, 'we've never had it better', broadly speaking?

[ShellyBoobs]

I know things are grim at the moment for a lot of people in certain aspects of life but in the western world, on average, as a people, we spend less of our income on food and fuel than we did 20 years ago. We live longer than anyone could have imagined just a couple of generations ago and we have opportunities that were unimagineable half a century earlier.

It's not that bad, is it?

[LDNmummy]

For someone like me who is just starting out and looking to buy a first home with my DH, both of us saddled with student debt and rising costs in everything while quality is decreasing, I beg to differ OP.

[ShellyBoobs]

@Omigawd, according to the Nationwide, average house prices were around 4 x average salary in 1990, compared to 5 x average salary now. It's not such a huge disparity, is it?

(can I just say, I'm playing devil's advocate here, I'm trying to understand in my own mind whether things are really harder now that in the past. I'm not thinking I have all the answers :) )

[ShellyBoobs]

"OP who is the 'averidge person' then?"

Someone earning an average salary, with an average family?

[Birdsgottafly]

Your just a bit younger than me so thinking back are there the 'nice' counsil houses that there once were? I don't think that there are. Education wasn't as it is now or as needed, so that change has again altered everything, you cannot separate aspects of life. I didn't realise how complicated having a baby was these days until i came on MN (not critising, just saying). I think that there are pros and cons, but the housing issue cannot be ignored.

[Birdsgottafly]

OP who is average? It depends on the part of the country that you live in and even then one person in the street can be earning £35k and next door £12K. There used to be well defined working class and middle class areas but now they have merged so you cannot compare. You would have to name figures. Houses were i live start at £18k, what can you buy 'down south' for that?

[ShellyBoobs]

"...so thinking back are there the 'nice' counsil houses that there once were? I don't think that there are."

That's a good point. That's something that's all but disappeared from the radar for young people starting out. You've got to be a pretty extraordinary case these days to get a council house as your first home when starting out, I suppose.

[ShellyBoobs]

"It depends on the part of the country that you live in and even then one person in the street can be earning £35k and next door £12K. There used to be well defined working class and middle class areas but now they have merged so you cannot compare. "

That's why I was trying to compare now with the past in other terms, without looking at specific financial figures. I agree it's all but impossible to give accurate averages.

[Birdsgottafly]

OK i have worked in social care for 27 years and there is an improvement. But that does not mean that the unfair policies of the government should be ignored. If you can find work and have no disability in your family, you are lucky, but very few people have the complete confidence that they will have jobs in the coming months and because of home ownership the results are going to be disastorous.

[Birdsgottafly]

The standard of living has risen as you would expect in an industrialised country. The Uk doesn't compare well with othe EU countries on some things. The new rules are stupid and what the government is proposing towards disabled people should be criminal. I don't think that we can solve the employment crisis because of immigration. I am not against immigration but because of it there are ever increasing numbers here competing for everything so there will be losers, and it is to what level the government decide to let them lose, that matters.

[southofthethames]

OP - I don't think I can agree with the price of actual items (from petrol to houses) being relatively cheaper than 20 years ago, but I think there are some advances that we enjoy now that are better - eg mobile phones and relatively cheaper calls (if you get your package/tariff for landlines/broadband/mobile) right, so that calling someone in another city/country/time zone, or just calls in any emergency, etc are much easier and cheaper than they used to be, texting meaning you can get a message through even if someone is driving or unable to come to the phone, etc. Longer shop opening hours for people who do shift work to be able to get a few essential groceries that the corner shop didn't have - some may argue this isn't great for workers who "have" to do these shifts, others say it's useful for students (or some mums!) who want part time work out of office hours. The economy might not seem great now compared to 5 years ago but it has certainly been worse before.

[TheBride]

The fundamental problem is that we don't have enough work to support the current population of the UK, and I don't think this is ever likely to be reversed due to the fact that the UK is a mature economy with saturated consumer demand. Where, realistically, is growth going to come from? The new global growth hub is Asia, so Europe's fortunes will largely be tied to the Asian economic cycle.

The other problem with that is that our pension system is designed as a massive Ponzi scheme so we need a large working population to support an increasing number of pensioners. The fact that anyone with half a brain can work out that this cant go on forever doesn't mean that any government stepped in to change the system before it hit the fenders. I posted this on another thread, but look at the ratios. When the pension system was designed, and even up to say , the 1970s, people started work at 16, debt free, worked till they were 65, then maybe lived another 10 years, giving a working life: retirement ratio of 5:1. Now, people start work around 25, work till 65, and then live another 20 years, giving a ratio of 2:1. Now that is never going to work in terms of funding. Problem is, how do we fix it? No politically acceptable solutions present themselves. We all just live longer than we can afford to. Do we have the right to burden the young with that problem?

[ShellyBoobs]

House prices may be relatively higher than 20 years ago, but in 1990 the base rate was 14% and the cost of a mortgage was still, relatively to salary, higher than today.

[lesley33]

I think people tend to look back at the good bits and forget the bad bits of the past. There were far less university educated people in the past and far less middle class jobs, so those who werein this situation I think were probably better off.

But for poorer families like mine, we are much better off. I am 46. When I was young we lived in 2 rooms with a shared outside toilet, no bathroom. Council run Leisure Centres in the 60's and 70's still had baths for people without a bathroom. The % of people with no inside toilet or bathroom was actually pretty high.

There wasn't the availability of a wide variety of foodstuffs like now. Even garlic was rare never mind ginger,lemon grass, etc.

There was no maternity pay at all until the 70's. No entitlement to flexible working, no working tax credits, much much poorer health and safety at work, etc etc.

[lesley33]

And I remember the 80's well - our last recession. Lots of unemployment and redundancies, very very high interest rates that mean't the cost of living was soaring whilst wages did not keep pace,high number of house repossessions and lots of people in negative equity.

I think the public buildings and spaces were far more run down in the 80's as well. You didn't get planting in roundabouts or at the sides of roads, dole offices were grim and dirty smoke filled dives and being a single mum still carried a huge stigma.

[lesley33]

Also in past lots of disabled people locked up froma young age in grim institutional hospitals, bullying largely seen as just one of those things, child abuse wasn't on the public agenda and there wasn't the same emphasis on trying to stop children being abused.

I listened to Esther Rantzen on Radio 4 this morning. She was instrumental in setting up childline after they had done a small bit about child abuse on her programme and as part of this they had a free phone line children could ring for the next few days, for advice. That first evening, they had 50,000 calls! And that is because there wasn't really any help then.

[lesley33]

Sorry about all my postings!

But basically I think for a small number of traditional middle class families life now is probably not as good. But I think for almost everyone else, life is better.

[Glitterknickaz]

You don't get help from SS.
I've begged for help, I've had professionals begging for help on our behalf from the CDT and.... nothing.

[Birdsgottafly]

As i said in my earlir post, the standard of living has improved but that doesn't mean that the unjust treatment of those at the bottom rung of society shouldn't be challenged. Life should be getting better in the UK, we are suppossed to live in a progressing society but some people are being put back to where we were in the 1980's but with new problems that changes have brought.

[Birdsgottafly]

The help that has been given is what the new government is trying to take away.

Lesley- you are describing the 1980's, yet your first two lines now sum up today but then thats not really a suprise considering we have the tory's in power again.

[lesley33]

Sorry Glitter I didn't mean the kind of help you need. I meant that as recently as the1980's when children disclosed abuse including to the police, many professionals including SS did nothing.

There are sadly lots of adults about now who will tell you they told a teacher,police man, etc that their dad was touching them sexually, beating trhem up, etc and nobody did anything.

I think that has changed for the better.

[lesley33]

Birds - Yes unfortunately there are lots of redundancies and unemployment again. I just think though that some people forget that it has been the same situation in the recent past.

[Amieesmum]

Life is what you make it - money or no money. I've lived both sides of the line, as long as you aspire to do the best with the situation you've got you can't go wrong.

[jade80]

I agree with OP and Lesley, I think we are very lucky now. Yes there are sad stories and some people who don't get the support they deserve, but as a whole we as a country have a good standard of living- access to shops with a wide variety of products, free education, free healthcare, access to information. Yes, there are inevitable problems with them all in some way, but still, we are well off. There are a few countries where I believe the standard of living is a little better, but many where it is nowhere close.

[mumeeee]

DH is actually earning less then he did 10 years ago and he is still in the same job. Dd1 went to uni and is now paying off her student loan. DD2 is still at uni and will come out with a bigger debt then her sister did. We actually pay a larger amount of our income on food then we did a few years ago.

[Tryharder]

I agree with Triphop. I think we are probably the first generation who are poorer than our parents. My parents live comfortably due to profits made from housing sales. They're not middle class with fat pensions - just retired working class people.

But I also agree with the OP that life is generally OK for the large majority of people.