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 really don’t agree that young people have less opportunity than previous generations, especially not as a woman.

I’m a female lawyer who is state educated. It would have been a much harder path for me in previous generations.

The average vet salary is is £44,113 per year in England. So not significantly more at all.

You need leaders and the average C-Level salaries are way higher than £40k. Is a pipe dream. Show me somwehere that it has worked? Finland tried MBI amd it failed to get people back to work.
I like Sweden for a good middle ground. 60% tax, but e.g. 90% paid one year paternity and maternity pay.
I would happily pay 60% tax for great benefits like that

A lot of us are paying 47y% tax/NI, plus som 9% graduate tax on top of that and then sometimes 10x what you pay in some countries for full time child care which makes Sweden with a 60% tax and which has abolished all inheritance tax look like a relatively low tax nirvana even before we add my £3800 a year council tax and all the stamp duties those of us who have bought somewhere have shelled out.

45% tax is for earnings over £150,000. 2% NI. Below £150,000 it’s 40%/20%. However the tax take from those paying 40/45% is greater than the whole of the tax take at 20%. This is why better paid jobs really need to be maintained. The government gets more tax. It will need it!

and I pay an awful lot of tax

We know. Everyone knows.

Is this a joke? You think you should get a house because you had to stay home and watch movies.

Why should you ensure that the younger generation is able to afford housing? I'll tell you why... these are the people who are going to drive the economy and decide political paradigms for the next 30 years. They are facing consumer debt (in the form of mortgages, educational loans, car payments etc.) at a scale that has been been seen previously in this country.

If they feel like the economy is geared against them and they are forced to pay ridiculous mortgages, nursery fees etc. and scrape a living, while "older" people have amassed wealth purely due to the timing of their birth, they will revolt.

We're seeing signs of this inter-generational tension already and, at some point, the politicians will start paying attention to these voters (yes, currently a lot of them are still politically inactive but that is changing faster than it has in the last 10 years). This will result in taxes aimed at older voters to "close the gap".

This will result in taxes aimed at older voters to "close the gap

What exactly are they going to tax?

Not all older people have pensions or an income despite how much people think all baby boomers live in million pound mansions and have a huge pension

Are you suggesting that there will be an ageist tax.

@Oliversmumsarmy On wealth. Not income. Capital gains and appreciation of assets via measures such as inheritance tax, higher taxes on owning property (council tax) similar to the US where you pay taxes proportional to the value of your home.

Ageist tax? Is that what they calling university fees these days? Or the fact that pensions have been "triple locked" when junior doctors havn't seen a pay rise in 10 years?

higher taxes on owning property (council tax) similar to the US where you pay taxes proportional to the value of your home.

Erm we do that already. How much council tax we pay depends on the banding of your house, which depends on value.

And though some of the houses owned by the "not-young people" may be owned outright, many of them still have mortgages e.g. house is worth £250k, is in council tax band x (whatever it is for that value in that area). But you can't say the owner has "wealth" of £250k if they have half of that still owing on the mortgage, they only have "wealth" of £125k.

junior doctors havn't seen a pay rise in 10 years?

They’ve had the same pay rises as everyone else in the NHS.

@00100001 So what your saying is that people would ONLY go to uni, & train for years to become a vet, IF they are given significantly more money than someone who doesn't work, a shelf stacker or a young person (for example)? Interesting.

@Oliversmumsarmy Are you implying that anyone with the means to do so would leave the UK, if they could have a better lifestyle elsewhere, Should a government take large chunks of peoples money to redistribute to the unemployed, the shelf stackers or the 'young' (for example)? Interesting.

So maybe a Universal basic income isn't the answer .

How about something cheaper. The government could appropriate all older peoples homes moving them into retirement villages. Then every young person could be given a free house when they turn 18.
Wages inequality will still be an incentive to go to uni and become a vet. And no one will have to flee the country until they are about to retire saving us a lot of money in elderly care costs.

I wonder how many people will take you at face value this time @ZombieFan?

@Allergictoironing Erm. We don't. It's not based on a percentage of the current market value as it is in the US. At the moment, it's based on values from 1991 and it's a fixed rate per band (for example, band H = £2000 irrespective of if your house is worth £800k or £8M today).

@zombiegan

Well... Yes. If Sam receives £40,000 for sitting around unemployed. Why would Jordan go out and work 40hrs to Earn £40,000?

@Alsohuman which was below inflation (and therefore a pay cut) for years till 2018

@MilkTrayLimeBarrel You have clearly had a irony by pass. I can assure you my remarks were not meant the way you have taken them.

My comment was made because I was so angry at the idea that young people should be rewarded for staying at home for a few months. As if they are making such a massive sacrifice for all of us.

The OP clearly has no idea what sacrifice is.

My mother was a child when two of her brothers were killed in the first world war.

Almost a whole generation of young men were killed in that war. Many of them not much more than children, they died in rat and lice infested trenches, no doubt, many of them crying for their mothers.

If they couldn't take the horror they were living in and tried to run they were shot.

Did the ones that survive come back and get rewarded? Did they hell. They came back to nothing, no work, and certainly no huge financial bonuses.

My parents lived through the second world war. Children weren't just asked to stay in doors for a few months, they were sent away from their parents and had to live with complete strangers for months on end many of them never seeing their parents again because many of their parents would have been killed by the bombing. Were they financially rewarded for their sacrifices. Of course they weren't.

I'm sorry if you were offended by my angry comments. Your understanding of them was the complete opposite of the meaning behind them.

The ageism on MN is rife and it angers me.

There seems to be a general idea that anyone old has had a fine old time at the expense of the younger generations.

Each generation pays towards the previous and next generations in this country, it's the way a welfare state works. My parents worked and paid their share, as did most of their generation. I worked and paid my share, as did most of my generation

Yes, some of the 'baby boomers' were probably the first generation to have affordable housing and were able to save but not all of them achieved that. Plenty of them went without and are still living in poverty.

It's a ludicrous idea that young people are making some sort of massive sacrifice so that old people will survive and should therefore be rewarded. I, and millions of older people are also stuck at home.

As I said, I'm sorry if my post offended you, or anyone else. I'm actually shocked and surprised that anyone reading my clearly ironic and angry comments thought that I was agreeing with the OP and genuinely voicing such awful sentiments.

Young people can save and buy their houses like generations before them .

And if, all of a sudden it costs Mr Supermarket £40,000 + pension contributions to employ every person from Trolley pushers, to stackers to admin etc. First of all a lot of places would close. And /or Prices would go up significantly.

The people unemployed would get £40,000 and have no incentive to work.

If prices went up, and it now costs (say) £4.40 for amount of milk and £7.99 for a loaf of bread, your £40k isn't going to go as far is it?

So all of a sudden £40k isn't a big salary.

Plus, if the trolley pusher is getting £40k. What should the store manager get paid?

which was below inflation (and therefore a pay cut) for years till 2018

The same as everyone who works in the public sector, including my husband. No idea what point you’re attempting to make.

I have no idea if zombiefan is being serious or not

@Alsohuman maybe you should read the post again?

Your extensive housebuilding programme will eat away at greenspace, leaving less for future generations. Why not tackle second home ownership and repeal the Right to Buy Act first?

The only people who will truly benefit from extensive house building are property developers and private landlords, neither of which probably fit your ageist criteria.

I get your sentiment but your logic is horribly flawed.

maybe you should read the post again?

Don’t need to. You suggested public sector pay rises are ageist. My bloke’s public sector and he’s 62.