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?

I propose unspecified benefits for a vague subsection of society.

Who’s with me?

Have you got evidence for that @ZombieFan?

Theukisgreatt

Evidence for what, number of university places? Just do a simple google, the information is not secret or hard to find. However I am old enough to have lived it so didn't need to.

eaglejulesk you have endorsed an abusive post which does nothing to enhance the debate, merely debases it.

Not sure socks do much to enhance the debate either.....

There’s been no debate to debase. You’ve proposed a ridiculous hypothesis for which you can present no intelligent evidence and which has been shot down in flames by a whole stream of posters.

FYI University is still free at the point of use, just like the NHS. Its just accounted for in a different way now
In the past there were zero tuition fees and widely available means tested grants. Now the cost is £9000 per year and there are way fewer grants. When getting NHS treatment you do not incur a debt which you have to repay after. This is more than just an accounting difference, it is a massive and life-changing financial difference.

No evidence that younger people are more likely not to be following the guidance related to coronavirus. @ZombieFan

There’s been no debate to debase. You’ve proposed a ridiculous hypothesis for which you can present no intelligent evidence and which has been shot down in flames by a whole stream of posters
I have presented more evidence in the course of the many posts I have made than the majority of those who disagree, and unlike you I have not resorted to personal abuse. Simply disagreeing however vociferously does not constitute shooting someone down in flames. Neither the counterarguments I have made nor your personal abuse have caused me to waver one iota from the opinion I expressed at the start

I am 47.

I was let go from a job, with no notice nor redundancy money, because of recession within 6 months of starting work at 16. It has been recession after recession ever since. I know having to search down the back of the sofa to try and find enough pennies to buy a 10p Chomp or packet of potato puffs because of being ravenously hungry and only finding 9 pence.

Sod the "young people". They can damned well learn to cope like every generation before them. Just because the cause of the next one is a shitty virus makes no fucking difference whatsoever.

In the past there were zero tuition fees and widely available means tested grants. Now the cost is £9000 per year and there are way fewer grants.
Like I said it was accounted for differently. In the past you repaid the cost of your 'free' uni by earning more and paying more taxes. Now You repay your uni tuition by paying more when you earn more. Earn zero pay zero. Same thing different mechanism.
But of course now young people have a LOT more access to higher education they have a massive advantage over the majority that were born decades ago.

So you cant single out one thing from the past and complain its unfair.

In the past you repaid the cost of your 'free' uni by earning more and paying more taxes. Now You repay your uni tuition by paying more when you earn more
I am sorry this just does not make sense. If you do not incur a cost for a service then you have a financial advantage over people that do, and given that there is no such thing as income tax over 100%, there is no amount of extra earning that compensates for this advantage

Sod the "young people". They can damned well learn to cope like every generation before them. Just because the cause of the next one is a shitty virus makes no fucking difference whatsoever
I am sorry that you have had bad experiences in your life, however lashing out like this at a whole generation of people just comes across as bitter and mean-spirited.

BumpyNugget. Panic not, you could easily be one of the young people. In fact you could choose to be, given the OP isn’t able to answer the question.

Only about 30% of people repay their loans in full. If you never earn more than the threshold you don’t pay a penny. As a higher rate tax payer for 30 years I paid for my “free” university place and grant multiple times, as did the rest of my cohort.

Only about 30% of people repay their loans in full. If you never earn more than the threshold you don’t pay a penny. As a higher rate tax payer for 30 years I paid for my “free” university place and grant multiple times, as did the rest of my cohort

The 30% (assuming the figure is correct) who repay in full, and the likely much higher percentage who repay a large part (At commercial interest rates) will also have paid taxes in their lifetimes, indeed there will be very many among them who will also be higher rate taxpayers for 30 plus years and on top of that repaid tuition fees which earlier generations did not have.

The 30% (assuming the figure is correct) who repay in full, and the likely much higher percentage who repay a large part (At commercial interest rates) will also have paid taxes in their lifetimes,

You are not comparing like with like. Because the tax rates over history are not the same. In the past the highest rate actually reached 99.25% but reduced slightly to 90% for decades. So in the past people with degrees paid a shed load more for their --free- education than students do now.

What is the highest tax rate now? 45%

So its apparent that the massive increase in students that now have access to higher education (many at zero cost) means the younger generation are much more advantaged than people before because having a degree increases you earnings.

they will have done further damage to their mental health by staying indoors for months on end

Says who? On what evidence? Sorry, but I do not believe this.

*You are not comparing like with like. Because the tax rates over history are not the same. In the past the highest rate actually reached 99.25% but reduced slightly to 90% for decades. So in the past people with degrees paid a shed load more for their --free- education than students do now.

What is the highest tax rate now? 45%*

The student graduating in 1980 will likely be a taxpayer for 40 years, most of which will have been at rates much closer to a 45% than a 99% ceiling. It seems very likely that if someone graduating in 2020 becomes a higher rate taxpayer they will pay a lifetime higher amount than the 1980 graduate and for a lower state pension dividend and worse public services, given the debts which will be added to the £1.8 trillion existing liability after this.

Lots of grads now don’t get grad level jobs anyway! The latest projection I saw was that only 17% will pay off the loans in full. To do that, they will be paying higher tax rates. So it’s a big tax take from them.

I'm working so hard if feels like my eyes might fall out at the moment, and a big part of my job is helping to deliver big new affordable housing schemes (social rent, market rent and shared ownership). So you aren't forgotten about or unheard.

But both my parents are in their sixties and both are working in "front line" jobs (health care and the justice system) so I won't let you claim that it is the young ones carryinf this right now. They both risk their lives every day, commuting by train and in their jobs. And the reality is a big economic crash will mean their pensions may be worth fuck all at the end of this pandemic, meaning their "reward" for risking their lives will be a tough retirement.

Thatcher cut the top tax rate to in 1979 from 83% to 60%. In 2013 it was cut to the 45% we have now. Hardly 40 years of 45%.

But when you take into account that 50% of young people now go to university compared to nearly 10% in past then its glaringly obvious that today's generation have much more advantage than my generation, who never had such life changing opportunities.

Its only fair that the richest graduates pay a tiny bit more for their advantages. Are you suggesting the poor should pay more tax so the rich can study for free? Ridiculous.

Lots of grads now don’t get grad level jobs anyway! The latest projection I saw was that only 17% will pay off the loans in full

That is why I said the best thing young people can do for themselves is actually think long and hard about whether they actually need A levels or go to university.

From what I have seen it is the ones who take the university route that are struggling or will struggle.

@Ordree - abusive??? Wow - you live a sheltered life!!! You are spouting a load of rubbish, and despite the majority of people disagreeing with you, you insist that your view is the only right one. Haven't you got anything better to do?