Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

[Ordree]

As others have noted, young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others, mostly but not exclusively from much older age groups. They will be bequeathed a damaged planet, a ruined economy and they will have done further damage to their mental health by staying indoors for months on end. They are the ones paying older people's pensions when they won't have anything like the same financial security to look forward to themselves. Yes I know older people paid their elders pensions during their working lives, bit never has there been such an imbalance. As the economy is likely to be ruined short to medium term anyway, would it not be reasonable to start the biggest givernment-funded housebuilding programme ever, allow younger people who have just bought to write off negative equity losses against tax, and essentially redress some of the appalling imbalance between generations and classes?

young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others

Are they?

Where's all this money going to come from though ? And why is it that you think they are exclusively sacrificing young healthy people are also dying maybe not in such great numbers as older people but by staying in they are also protecting there selves

I agree in part. I really worry for young people but especially those who have recently purchased a property. Everyone always wants cheap houses for the young but forget about the young who will be unable to recover negative equity losses for a very long time. It’s terrifying for them and sadly I don’t think there’s much in the budget for help like that, but I agree.

Younger people will mostly be rewarded by not dying horrible painful deaths. That's reward enough.

You realise that young people with no underlying health conditions can also die from Covid 19 right?

I think the focus should be on young renters on low wages who may become homeless. Not homeowners

Er, NO!
They're not the first generation to have been hit by negative equity. Those of us who lived through the 1990s had it tough, and with interest rates at 15%, followed by the global crash in 2008.
You really think the most cosseted generation in history should be financially compensated for being expected to stay home on their X-boxes for a couple of months, not only to help protect others but also themselves?
Never heard such a ridiculous idea.

I saw a video of 30 or so young people playing cricket on the news this morning, then running off when they realised they were being filmed. Are they in or out of this scheme?

Exactly. To even wualify for a mortgage now you need a salary of 30-50k (joint or sole) - people in this bracket are hardly poor. They can just live in houses with negative equity and save like their parents and grandparents did

Its shit for everyone in the moment. So why should one group be rewarded? if at all, it should be a financial reward for carers and nurses, as they get the worst deals (i’m intentionally excluding doctors, as they at least get - or will get when their career progresses - a respectable salary)

What counts as a 'young person'?

Every generation has had its "losers"

Personally I think that this crisis has proved how fragile the whole senior care system is! We are all going to get older and I can't imagine the horror of nobody checking that you've got food and are safe.

I'm not blaming carers here by the way. They do an amazing job for low pay and I understand how they must have been terrified of infecting a patient.

Young people will be paying for this via taxes long after quite a few of us are dead and gone. They are not likely to get the buoyant they years that baby boomers have enjoyed. Their pension savings will be trashed and their earning potential. I would suggest an income tax holiday but that will not help the NHS! Many young people will struggle to get housing at all. It is definitely going to be worse for those under 30. We are now at a GDP of -14%. So massive recession on the way. Pensioners will be fairly protected from that. They have crystallised earnings.

Let's just say someday you'll be old too, OP, and see what you think when the next generation young people think you are disposable and less worthy.

Why are we not compensating old people for working and surviving a world war where they lost homes, jobs family and friends and sacrificed a lot including to some extent their childhoods or their freedoms. We are not the only generation to suffer. It took me 15 years working to save a few thousand that i then had to spend on living when things got rough and now im left with nothing again and yet, i will pick myself up and continue to work hard for all i have. I dont expect to be handed things on a plate unlike a lot of people i know my age who feel entitled to everyrhing handed to them on a platter. When my parents were young and their parents who grew up in absolute poverty they worked very hard and saved anything they could sacrificing wants for needs. So no holidays ever, no tv no fancy food or dinners out. And yet people my age now are jetting off all over the world, buying latest gadgets all the time have new clothes and shoes all the time then complain they have no deposit or savings for a home. Yet they wont be told. (I know not every young person but a large percent do.)

We need an insurance policy for care in old age. Yet another burden for younger people though. They would spend their lives making contributions.

I am “younger generation” and this is hilarious!!
The real sacrifice was years ago by our grandparents going off to fight in a war not knowing if they would come home again. Children being sent off to strangers houses for their own safety.
That was sacrifice! What we are currently going through is hard but a walk in the park compared to all of that!
What did our grandparents get (if they survived!), a medal which they were incredibly proud of.

Many pensioners are on the breadline as well have you seen how much state pension is not all have private pensions or large savings I know my grandparents didn't .Everyone has suffered in this or will in someway and lots of generations have had it hard with previous recessions , interest rates etc . I think surviving this is the main thing

Older people, in effect, were compensated. Better pensions, the NHS, full employment, cheaper housing, holidays abroad, better state provisions, decent education for their DC who could now aspire to university, free GP appointments and better food and greater life expectancy.

I actually think it’s the 30- 60 yr olds taking the brunt.

Basically you are equating wealth and better off life as owning a house. Thats all. So actually younger generations so far have had it much better off in terms of luxury items and holidays and nights out and dining out and buying into a consumer lifestyle. The only thing they lack is owning a home which in the scheme of things means very little and is a very typically british trait. No other country i have ever lived in has been so obsessed with home ownership.

A programme of building publicly owned housing stock to give people secure rentals is a good idea but this is something I was in favour of before the virus.
If you take away older homeowners' equity we'll need to spend a lot more on social care costs.

Some pensioners are poor but millions are not. They had mortgage relief and help with pension saving via employer contributions and final salary schemes. Rare these days.

Did these older people not work for all this though - nhs , pensions etc holidays abroad don't think governments funded there holidays

Sorry, but what a load of shite!! What about key workers, particularly within NHS, who aren't younger? Or those that have come out of retirement to help?
What about younger people who are contributing nothing but problems by flouting the rules?
How about people just do what they can to help us all through this, and be grateful if and when they see the other side, without expecting more?