… to think that no one wants to speak up for the younger generation?

[SnowBells]

I don't know what it is. Maybe political correctness gone mad.

Pensioners who are already wealthy get winter fuel allowance, etc. Each time this kind of stuff gets mentioned on things like Question Time or something, people shout and whistle, showing complete disregard for the subject, and no real debate can happen.

I am not talking about the pensioners who aren't well off. But a huge proportion of pensioners did profit from the higher house prices - something not likely to happen for the younger generation.

Our kids have to pay to go to uni. My generation will retire much, much later. We also have to pay for inflated house prices.

And yet, there will be people who say 'but we've paid our taxes'. Well, we pay taxes and our kids will, too, but we are likely to get A LOT less back. I just feel there's a huge generational wealth divide. And I wonder why no one wants to discuss this properly? Why do people want to stop a debate before it has even had a chance to happen?

Everyone will die. Your legacy is the next generation. So why not speak up for what essentially will be your only legacy?

Oh and op this won't end well.The thread will just end with those agreeing being classed as whiny youngsters envious towards the deserving elderly who slogged far harder than any of us and lived through the war.The fact is most were babies in the war and certainly worked no harder than the majority of us.

Dp and I have 3 degrees between us,my inlaws don't have a single qualification between them but live on a pension many would weep at mortgage free with a house in the Home Counties.

The above generation were simply very lucky as to when they were born,like to cling on to the comforts their parents generation gave them and can well afford to shut their eyes to reality.

We can't.

Don't only look at now when judging the older generation. Things were not easy for most in the 60s 70s or 80s. High inflation, high unemployment, high taxes etc. The older generation benefit as they were required to save - we forget that credit wasn't available to a lot of people. White goods and electrical were on hire purchase. Yes their uni fees were paid but less people could actually go. Yes house prices were lower but so we're wages and women got paid less simply because they were female.

Why should we expect to retire at 65? This age was set when people died by 72. Of course it should be higher so that the burden on those working is easier.

Although I do agree that there needs to be a bit more parity across society. Why do OAPs get winter fuel allowance but child benefit for all is a thing of the past? Answer - little to do with affording it and everything to do with who actually votes. If more of our generation voted it would be more balanced.

I wish people wouldn't say that interest rates hit 15% in the 90's. For ONE DAY in 1989 they hit 15%. Before that, you have to go back to 1981 and the late seventies.

My parents and my PILs all retired by 55, are all still alive 25 years later having collected generous final salary scheme pensions for that period paid for by current workers who will NEVER be able to take that kind of benefit. Nobody foresaw the increase in life expectancy and promises were made that nobody has dared renege on even though they are unfair to the current young. The public sector is STILL seeing people retiring on gold plated (inflation linked, final salary schemes) that are worth capital sums out of all proportion to the amounts that were paid in. I do indeed feel sorry for the young and think that the current youngsters at college will be the first generation to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

Ami you have to compare like with like though.

Your experience is nothing like that of my parents or my inlaws.

My dad had a similar level job to dp.I like to compare their lot at my age to mine.

Dp is way more qualified than my dad but at our age my dad was counting down to early retirement,the property boom paid off his mortgage,mum never worked,we had a new car,ate very well,had holidays abroad and enjoyed tropical heating in our house.I won't bore you with the details of our life as I'm sure it's familiar with many however I will just say it's the complete opposite in every way.

To be honest my parents are fab and an exception to the rule but generally it is their generation which annoys me.The sense of entitlement,refusal to look at reality and the inflated view they have of themselves.

The above generation were simply very lucky as to when they were born,like to cling on to the comforts their parents generation gave them and can well afford to shut their eyes to reality.

Retropear I agree with you!

I also agree with you that you have to compare like for like. My in-laws definitely had heating, phone, car, etc. DH's job is similar to his dad's 30 years ago. DH earns well, and I earn a similar salary - so we are lucky. However, what we earn now is not enough to afford what my in-laws had back then. MiL was a SAHM. They could afford a detached 4-bed home not a long way away from London. They bought at a much younger age (20s). There's no way I could EVER not work, unless DH doubles his salary over night.

Looking around PiLs street, not many actually had a uni degree, but house prices are such that not many without a degree would be able to afford them these days. One of the neighbors apparently bought their house for £40k. It's now worth at least 10 times that.

At the same time, wages have not increased 10 times.

Simple maths.

With all due respect Joven I recall receiving a cheque for £250 in 1978 - it was the minimum grant paid by my county. Further - in 1987 I received a bonus and paid 60% tax on the entire amount. I can't recall the exact tax thresholds at the time but I paid National insurance AND then tax at basic rate which I think was 30%. There was then a 40% tax threshold and a 60% tax threshold. I think research would evidence that.

Furthermore although interest rates only hit 15% for one day they were between 10% and 12.5% for several years during the 80s and early 90s. Additionally most employers didn't let employees under 24 join pensions schemes and maternity leave was a relatively new concept and limited to a maximum of six months.

My in-laws bought a house in 1960 for £2,500. It is worth about £160,000 now. My FIL was an engineer, my MIL a teacher - I think they probably could afford that house now on comparable wages. FIL didn't marry until he was 30 and lived with his mum so had saved nearly £2000 for a deposit. He didn't go to university; instead he went to work at 15 and did qualifications on day release.

Both my ILs remembered being cold and very hungry as children - DH was a bit hungry because they preferred to put money in the building society but never cold. DH didn't go abroad until he was 22. MIL was evactuated and didn't see her parents for four years. My father arrived in the UK on Kinder Transport and saw his parents for the last time when he was 10.

Yep, previous generations certainly had it so much easier.

NearTheWindmill

My maternity leave would only be a max. of 2 months (or 6 weeks). I know I could take more, but that would basically be the end of my career (i.e. it wold stagnate). I don't want that to happen as we need both incomes. Next step up from my role, it's 90% men. They don't do maternity leave, obviously.

Just because we have more rights on paper does not mean we will make use of them.

What would your dad do these days if he had to work at 15? I've been asking this of so many people, but nobody ever seems to dare answer.

There are still kids going hungry these days. Many people still do not go abroad (DH was 19?). Yes, the war was difficult - but you can't constantly bang on about something that happened when you were like 5?!? I have had some horrendous things happening when I was 5 (not in this country - think brutal terrorism and family lost). However, I don't keep going on about how difficult my life was back then!!! I was a kid.

There aren't that many people alive anymore who REALLY went through the war. FiL was born AFTER the war. My dad's almost 80. He was around 5 years old around the second world war. He can't even remember it all. And oh… he was based on the opposing side that (fortunately) lost as well.

snowbells please read my post accurately. It was my FIL, not my father. Goodness me, the reason you might not progress in your career really has nothing to do with the length of your maternity leave.

I worked in a male dominated environment where I was one of three traders on a floor of a 100 men. Do you really have to be so condescending. And I didn't have a degree I dropped out .

This country has encourage far too many people to go to university who never should have gone and regrettably all of society is now paying the price for that.

Near

Unfortunately, you would not get that job anymore without a degree (actually, a lot of trading jobs have gone now anyway).

Maternity leave does impact the career I'm in. It's a role that you sort of have to live and breathe. If I take a year off, someone else will replace me, and suddenly, you have to make do with a lesser job. It happens all the time. It also has to do with perception (the longer your ML, the less you are thought of taking your job seriously). My friends say the same thing about their workplace. So I'm not alone. They think 4 months is the longest you can go without it impacting your career. It's simply more competitive these days.

My dear, if you take an egg, pierce a hole, insert a straw, you will be able to teach your grandmother to suck it.

It still took a huge amount of intellect and self discipline to hold it down you know. I was earning six figures in the 1980s. I didn't do that because I was a lightweight. Neither have I ever been a whinger. Times have changed and if you have the intellect to meet them you will change with them.

And, by the way by the time I had my first baby at 35, I never needed to work again. But I do; because I like it - in something different where I give something back.

Well, I don't get it either why employers demand university degrees all the time.

See - your story is another such example. It would be very difficult to replicate it these days. Earning six figures in the 80s - that's a lot adjusted to today. Not many uni drop-outs would be able to achieve anything close to that.

Aah but I was a special drop out - I was well educated rather than well qualified. Massive difference . I reckon I could do it again today btw.

NeartheWindmill so what would your answer be to the fact that in the UK we actually send a lower proportion of our youth cohort to tertiary education than most of our international competitors (including the US, many European countries and many far Eastern countries)? Are they getting it wrong sending even more kids to university than us? Where are they getting their graduate jobs from that we can't manage to find?

For everyone who is in the "times are hard for the boomers too" camp, there are ONS statistics showing that the two groups who massively increased their income and assets in real terms during the long boom of the 2000s were, first, pensioners, then secondly baby boomers. The only group whose income and assets actually fell, in real terms compared to the same cohort in previous generations, during the same period, were those who were entering the job market in their twenties during the period 1998-2010. So there is hard data showing that the increase in wealth to older generations is at the direct expense of the youngest cohorts. If you are under 40 and feel you've been getting poorer relative to those above you: yes, figures show you certainly have!

Here's another, more anecdotal, but telling fact. Until recently, I used to earn a bit more than I do now (different job pre-DC): according to the IFS UK household income calculator my household income was on the 94th percentile. I could not get a mortgage for even a one-bed flat where I live (not enough deposit and couldn't get the income multiple anyway even if I had). 2-bed terraces start around 330k here (SE but not London) - more than twelve times the local median wage; who are these people earning 100k who want to live in a crumbly three-room Victorian workers' cottage with a ground-floor bathroom off the kitchen? (Answer: they are all bought as "investments" by baby boomer landlords, as the last lettings agents I met all told me.)

The situation is the same for many mid-thirties professional couples I know - many with several top- class Oxbridge degrees between them, double earners, working in mid-career positions, working 60-70 hour weeks as routine, all earning what are very good salaries on a national scale, but not able to buy even a basic house or flat without massive handouts from parents. Even allowing for the skew to the SE housing market this means extremely talented and hard-working young and not so young people are earning incomes in the top decile of the whole population but unable to buy even a starter property. Isn't there something disastrously wrong with that? Young solicitors and doctors not able even to buy houses that boomers would have been able to afford happily on one semi-skilled income? Isn't there something a bit odd there? And there's no use, I'm afraid, coming back with all the "move to Wigan where the houses are 40k then" stuff: it's just pretending the (massive, elephantine) problem isn't there.

Extrapolate forward ten years from now and the generation coming up behind are earning even less and have big student loan debts. Who is going to afford to pay current price levels for the baby boomers' houses so they can pay for their care homes?

IFS UK income calculator (very interesting. Shows just how out of step with real incomes our housing bubble has become):
www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

I don't know. My DC are 19 and nearly 16. Perhaps I'm an optimist but I think they'll be OK. They have parents who have flourished and will pass on their wealth; meantime there will be a correction.

Home ownership is a very recent thing you know.

What is the position of a graduate in her twenties today?

Does she expect to house-share into her 30s? Yes. Unless she meets OH and moves in with him.

Does she expect to get the job she is qualified for, or to take what she can get for a while? She takes what she can get.

Does she expect to start a family in her twenties? Big NO.

Does she expect, if she takes on a mortgage, to be paying over 10% mortgage interest rates, (not Bank of England rates) for most of the mortgage term? The only way for mortgage rates to go is up.

Of course kids with wealthy parents will be OK: they nearly always are!

But consider that throughout the 20th century (particularly post-war), rising living standards worked like this: younger generations got jobs which gave them a better standard of living than previous generations; they earned more, paid lower living costs, generated a surplus in income so could pay more tax to support pensions and rising standards of living and healthcare for those both older than them and children coming up behind. The next generation gains better educational, health and social opportunities than the previous one and living standards as a society rise again as they pay more moment back in. The whole state pension is based on this model (NI isn't saved up but paid out again immediately to current pensioners).

Why on earth would any generation have an interest in that process going into reverse? Logical they would themselves suffer. If they want to see higher living standards in general for themselves in future retirement, they would logically want the generations coming up behind to be better off than they were - because only then will they generate the overall surplus that can be taken back in tax to pay for everyone's standard of living in retirement. And by standard of living I also include things like: safe clean streets; good medical care; good shops and services; clean convenient transport; good roads; pleasant people around who are clearly not ill or in poverty; social carers who genuinely do care; a pleasant community; leisure; health; low crime, and so on. If the baby boomer generation want all of those things and their pensions paid for and free bus passes and to profit from massive increases in their house values by forcing young people to pay through the nose for housing and not to have to sell the same houses for health or social care - well, has it not occurred to them that the only way the younger generations can pay for all of this is if they do have a massively higher standard of living than the boomers did? And not to be paying massive upfront debts for education and housing from the very start of their working lives?

Put another way, the current cost of tertiary education and housing is acting as a massive income constraint going forward for future generations - it will be siphoning off the very future income the boomers hope will be paying for their pleasant life in retirement. Rather counterintuitive; eating the goose that lays the golden eggs, really.

Even those boomers who had earn well and manage to insulate their own children from these pressures - don't you want to live in a pleasant country when you're 86, where the people selling you your paper at the shop and checking your bunions and your blood pressure are happy and smiling, and there are trees, and clean streets and decent transport and no poverty-stricken small children and no homeless people inconveniently cluttering up the place or rioting to steal trainers from Foot Locker? Because you only get a nice well-ordered, well-funded society if the people coming up behind you can afford to pay for it, not end up with worse opportunities than their parents, and just making sure you've hoarded some wealth to try to ring-fence you and your own children doesn't mean you'll like the world you end up in when everyone else is getting poorer.

really interesting, and depressing, thread :o

its just all so shit, I am 34, grew up in the 90's, and was always told growing up, work hard, do your exams, go to uni etc and you will have a good life. BULLSHIT. I did all that and for what, to be priced out of the housing market, to not be able to afford to save, to not be able to afford a pension (and even if we could who's to say it will be worth anything in the end??). yet dh and I earn pretty good money, over double min wage, but its still not enough for the above. its the cost of everything, housing / food / fuel / gas / electric etc etc it takes the absolute piss. and the govt don't give a tiny shit cos it doesn't affect THEM !!

and also strongly agree that the govt are pitting everyone against each other, as others have said in this thread.

I also agree that we should be doing a whole lot more speaking up against how shit it is for the "younger" generation, and the ones below us. cos if it doesn't improve, I fear for my dcs future, I really do

btw who SHOULD we be voting for to have any hope of making things better for us, I know nothing about politics but what I do know is that since this shower of shite came in things are loads worse!

amicissimma

No first time buyer today will be paying anywhere close to Bank of England rates - try more like 6%. You know the average age of first time buyers without parental help is now 37 and rising? On dual income, not single income? Buying housing that costs 3x in real terms than it did back then?

Or take monthly costs. My parents always told me that rent or mortgage should never exceed more than a third of your net household pay. My current rent is more than 50% of my net household income - to buy, I'd be looking at a monthly payment of around 75% - clearly not sustainable. And I earn a decent salary - but to buy a starter house here (certainly not even an average-priced house, at local prices) I'd need to more than triple my household income overnight.

But amicissimma, if the inflation-adjusted price of housing has more than tripled in that time, then yes the current generations are worse off. 47% increase in income compared to more than 300% increase in cost? Housing is a basic need and so an essential cost; people can't not pay it, which is why profiting out of it at others's expense is pretty immoral (and pretty silly if you're then going to expect the same people to pay for your collective pension).

When I bought my first flat my net monthly income was £427.00. My mortgage payment was £245. 1982. I could only do it because my parents gave me £6000 towards the deposit - if they hadn't I'd have been further out and more skint. My overall deposit for a mortgage 3 times my annual income was 9,000, ie, more than 25%. I needed a lodger to make ends meet.

Fast forward to 2014 - my DC would have to look a little further out - as I did even then (further out than I wanted when London was smaller). £250,00- surrey borders. 30% deposit £70,000? 180,000 mortgage - post training contract on £60,000 - mortgage of £180,000. And the difference is?

I can see why younger generations are resentful.

My gran is 80. She goes away 3 times a year on holiday, gets a full pension from teh state, winter fuel allowance and has money left from downsizing from her house that she made a nice profit on.

She also barely worked through her life as well. But she complains about how hard life is.

Meanwhile DH and i have never had a holiday with our kids, will never be able to own our home let alone make a profit on it and will never be able to save for a pension as life stands at the moment.