Do people understand that many of us have lived through high periods of unemployment?

[marymarkle]

There are major issues for young people today with zero hour contracts and high housing costs. But I do get a bit fed up with comments that state that life is much harder for young people now that ever before.

I left school during the Thatcher year. Unemployment was very high and outside London whole communities were decimated by this, I still remember a classmate just before we left coming into school excited because they had secured a job in a factory. Jobs were very hard to get, reaching a peak of 10.8% unemployed in the early 1980's, and that was with them fidding the unemployment figures. And there was no MW, wages were often very very low. Yes house prices were cheaper, but that only benefited those already doing well.

I remember it as a very grim time in our country. While the City was booming and people earned massive bonuses, street homelessness soared, use of illegal drugs soared, as did crime. And many adults in their 50s who lost jobs during this time, never worked again. It was a grim time economically to be young.

Now we have schools that are still sub-standard. Public buildings getting closed down. Very little rebuilding of council homes despite properties getting sold off. Sub-standard housing whether social/council/private. Homelessness at record highs. People living in poverty and an increase on the use of food banks. Churches and other centres used to offer a meal to the homeless, now this also includes those living in poverty. No employment rights for 2 years. The high cost of living in comparison to wages, and many households one pay cheque away from disaster. People living far away from the support network of the family because they've had to move away for various reasons.

A friend of one of my dc's lives in a shit hole. It's a bedsit that comprises of a very small shower/toilet, the kitchen that can have one person just about room for a cooker. The main room holds a bunk bed, wardrobe, drawer and a fridge. The room is for 2 people. It's damp, and the whole building is in a poor state because all the accommodation is the same - overcrowded and infested. Many shares are similar and not only house but room shares. We've seen double rooms with a couple of bunk beds in that charge a fortune for this.
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It was actually really hard to get a mortgage initially in the early 80s. Then Thatcher changed the legislation and made it easier. Which led to lots of repossessions a few years later. It was like the sub prime mortgage crisis in the US.
It was easier for the middle classes. And they are the ones who have the voice in the media.
But for ordinary people there have always been struggles. Some things are easier now, some things are harder.

Wait and see what happens in the next 20 years when “middle class, professional” jobs start to be automated!

Every generation has stuff to contend with that are unique to their generation.

I always think my grandmothers time of being alive was terrible. Living through two world wars. She was born just before Queen Victoria died.

Snuggybuggy I started working in higher education in 1994, I actually met Lord Dearing author of the report that suggested tuition fees and it was then the time of Blair’s push to get 50% in to higher education. Strange times indeed and a huge mistake. Many young people were sold those lies and there was never going to be thousands more graduate schemes and graduate level jobs to accommodate all those graduates.

By the time I took early retirement through ill health I can tell you when I was having to talk to people about outcomes and possibilities with the degree I was ‘selling’ on open days I felt like a liar.

I met so many intelligent and really enthusiastic students but the ones who got many of the plum jobs were the ones with contacts.

theworldistoosmall Yes things are going backwards. That bedsit sounds like some I have lived in. Things should have improved a lot over the years. And it is a disgrace it hasn't.

I fail to see the point in competitive misery. It doesn’t win you anything 🤷‍♀️

PolarBear I agree. Things are going to get much worse for the middle class.
I also get frustrated at those smug posters who lecture that all you have to do is pick the right field to work in. I did, after a shaky start and there was plenty of jobs. That field has now collapsed and I am back to earning a very low wage for jobs that I am over skilled for. Nobody can accurately foresee what will happen to their area of work in 30 years time. Things move far too quickly to be able to do that.

She is solely responsible for the ruin of communities up and down our country.

If your talking about things like the closing of mines, factories and shipbuilding, then no, she wasn't the sole reason for those closures. Her and all other MP's (from all parties) of the time were responsible for the demise of those industries, as well as such things as; the unions, the employer's, employee's, as well as (a big factor that is often overlooked); improvement in overseas travel and global communications that opened up the UK up to a wide variety of developing nations and vice versa.

ILoveMaxiBondi - that thread yesterday was terrible. The op committing benefit fraud, choosing to study for 40 hours on a 16-hour study course, yet moaning about the 17-year-old who was doing legally nothing wrong. I actually hope that wasn't a fake thread and the op will have her arse handed to her when UC realise she is massively playing the system.

Of course young people now face real issues. And middle class young people have a much tougher time than middle class young people in the past. And some employment practices should be made illegal.
But I do remember how run down everything was. Schools falling part literally, lots of closed shops (and not because of internet shopping, but because no one had any money), and how poor so many people were.

So pretty much like today then? Schools in our area can't afford books, paper, pens etc. Subjects are being cut because they can't afford to run them. Schools are in disrepair.

Shops in my area, one in four is closed/boarded up.

Food banks because people can't afford to feed their families.

Adversecamber, I think that about the life of my great grandmother who had a number of family tragedies dictated by outside events of the age.

However she herself said she had lived in a wonderful age of progress.

My grandparents made the same comments about the Great Depression in the 1930s and how it wasn't as bad as what was happening in the 1970s and 1980s.

It doesn't make people's fears and worries and struggles any less problematic now because there used to be workhouses and kids used to have no shoes to wear. Some Conservatives would have us go back to those times with a wealthy and tiny elite and the rest of us serfs.

I was born 1960.I think we had low expectations because although my parents had work we had little.Not many people had carsor telephones.Most people had 1 good outfit to wear at Church,weddings and funerals.
I trained as a nurse and there were no jobs for us.We all looked at adverts for jobs and took the ones we could get,I moved up nice to get into training and across country to get a job.
With my dad as guarantor(as a young woman it was considered risky to lend to me) I bought a house and got a lodger to help with the mortgage.
I now have daughter of my own and do not feel depressed about her future.The trade off is that while she has a more comfortable childhood,I had more freedom and had no idea of what others had outside my family and friends..
With the internet now we can see that others have more than us.Some people are so resentful of what they perceive to have been easier times that they forget to appreciate what they do have.
And when you're complaining about your cold draughty rental property pause to wonder why do many of people my age can knit.

Asset prices are much higher now and the young are being asked to pay for the baby boomer generations care. People moan too much in general about their situations rather than dealing with it, but I do believe the young have a raw deal. It's so hard to save for a reasonably priced house even- most that succeed get given deposits by parents.

Actually we were talking about yhis with my DM recently. I am millennial (early 30s).

Her generation had more job security, but that doesn't mean they had it easy. However, when I asked her to tell me all their direct debits when she was my age it really wasn't many.
My generation has more basic outgoings.
My DM never had to pay a broadband, but we do as it's a basic now. Same with phones, even pay as you go and cheap handset worksout more. They had 1 cheap landline if that.
Bills in general jumped up more than wages. Much more.
Food was basic, but healthy and affordable. If I want to eat the same quality as my parents did, I will bankrupt myself.
And clothes laste for ever fgs. My mum still has dresses and even a pair of trainers from 30+ years ago and they look like new.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the young generation today, who have never been able to buy a home, retire and need to keep paying rent. On meagre pensions.

Who will be funding the extra billions in housing benefits?

I was 19 when Thatcher came to power.

My DS1 is 19 now.

I believe he will have a harder time than I had.

I didn't have a uni debt, his will be £45,000. My mother was more or less a SAHM; I have to work along with DH to pay the bills. My dad (note singular) bought our house in 1969 for £45000. It was sold in 2017 for £450,000.

My dad worked 9-5, Mo-Fri as a middle manager in an engineering company, without a degree, from when he was 31- 57 when he took redundancy in 1990 with a £70,000 payout and a £35,000 pa pension. We were 'comfortable' lower MC.

However, now I work any and all hours; I will retire at 67. God knows what's in store for DS, some sort of zero-hours hybrid? To 75? For which he will have to have a degree in order to even be considered for?

My NHS job in 1993 when I started was not well paid but it was 'respected' and my terms and conditions partially compensated the pay, and much of my work was 9-5. And the over 50s were all 9-5 PT. Now we have 65 year olds being forced back onto night shifts.

Also, for me and mine, at 19, we could see things 'getting better', certainly for MC people; overseas holidays, the EU bringing prosperity (and peace having been regaled about 'The War' by our parents), the ending of The Cold War, nary a consideration for climate change with all our contraptions and long distance travel. Whereas I see our 19 year olds entering adult life in a way more hostile, uncertain world. You only need to be on MN, a rather gentle SM compared to some, to see how recent events have unleashed a nasty under-belly in our fracturing society, not least of it inter-generational 'warfare'.

The young see how their futures are being ruined by the old, and I think they have a point.

I wouldn't want to be 19 now.

Yes, times were tough in the past, but it's not a race to the bottom is it. Things should be better for younger generations now (and older ones too), we shouldn't be settling for 1980s standards.

As for social mobility, that only works if you've got money behind you. You can't just move to London to find a job without any accommodation, many that do that end up rough sleeping. Nor can you keep travelling for hours at short notice for interviews, public transport is damn expensive. If you look at most working class towns, social mobility just doesn't exist.

OP people who lived during WW2 had it harder than you had it in the 80s. People in the Depression of the 30s had it harder than you. People who lived during the bubonic plague had it harder still.

What do you have to complain about?

It's all relative isn't it?

What’s your point OP exactly?

The 1980s have gone so what’s the point in saying things were harder in my day? You’re not a young person living today, so you’ll have to rely on empathy.

The plain truth is, instead of having a go at young people for not knowing they’re born, why don’t we turn our attention to those who’ve made it how it is each and every time?

The bloody politicians and ruling classes.

When things turn to shit, they’re still ok. It happened during the world wars (the poor were the ones who suffered by being front line soldiers), it happens during recessions (look at the City for example) and it’ll happen during Brexit too (which is why Farage et al can merrily cheer for no deal).

Yet again people are turning against other generations. When instead we should be working together and demanding that those who are rich and in charge stop pushing the rest of us down.

I think the point is that we have lived through uncertain and scary times and have experience of how crap it is. When you see the next recession looming and know how your job will go “puff” overnight (and you aren’t 20 any more) it’s very sobering.

Did zero hour contracts exist then?

The Men would turn up at the docks/on building sites and the Gaffer would point, "you, you and you..., now the rest of you fuck off". Whoever was in charge often showed religious favouritism. The Men would just walk site to site.

Women in factories and clothing manufacturers, would be layed off for weeks until a new order came in.

Watching Classic Coronation, one of the characters went to the job centre and there was nothing paying over £1.45 an hour. That was 1989.

"Food banks because people can't afford to feed their families."

In my area we had a voucher system and SS was different, they'd have a home worker distribute food. As well as Churches.

There was a place were the children could get coats and shoes. One year the coats were purple, so everyone else avoided purple. If something anti-social happened, the first question was "was it one of the purple kids?".

You'd take your children to get given school uniform, as well.

There was a lot of malnutrition about. My Grandmother used to remark about how healthy the children looked, with shiny hair in the 00's, compared with earlier times.

The vast majority of people going into the work force today are going struggle to get a proper job. The graduates market is completely oversaturated. Meanwhile lesser paying jobs aren’t actually enough to live on. Even trainee doctors barely have enough to live off. Unfortunately being employed does not guarantee a living these days. Let’s not even think about the recession we are overdue. Too many people don’t earn enough to support themselves/their families and they never will. The result is that 10% of the country is supporting 90%. The tax rate for higher band tax payers is crippling. Even being a high earner doesn’t guarantee prosperity any more. Many families in that ten percent are living paycheque to paycheque. It’s a difficult time for everyone.

And the above doesn't just apply to London. My closest city has what is known as tent city, which is busy at night but clears our in the daytime when the residents go to work. Is that what people should be doing, sleeping out in sub zero temperatures just so they can demonstrate their solid work ethic?

Hollowing out of the middle class is the term I have heard.