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?

"Reward" for young people because of the lockdown? Our nhs frontline staff only got the claps!

@EmotionalFlood you can work your arse off and never be able to afford somewhere to live.
Where we live it’s uncommon to be in work above NMW. And guaranteed 30 hours a week is considered a lot of hours. This leaves you with take home pay of 910 quid or less if you both have 5% pension. If there’s 2 of you that’s £1600-1800
Our rent is £750 for a 1 bed.
You generally need a car to work because we are rural with shit transport but moving to the nearest city would likely cost closer to £850
Then you have food at £40 quid a week.
Council tax £150 a month
£200 on car, ins, tax and fuel.
£50 on water
£50 on mobiles
£50 on tv/phone/internet
£100 on gas and electric
That takes you easily up to £1500.
Any money on debts, or kids, or emergencies. Which come up every month. Or putting money aside because you need to save for your MOT or whatever.
These people are real and they aren’t working less hard just because they’re poorer

House prices will crash during the recession which is bound to hit, young people will be able to afford all the repos.
It's swings and roundabouts, those with big mortgages will find themselves in negative equity before long, some on furlough will be made redundant and this will be the resetting you mention.
It happens to every generation, we benefited from those before us, you'll benefit from those before you.
Watch this space OP.

Write off negative equity against tax You don't really have a good grasp of economics do you op. In fact I'd say your grasp is quite poor.

Panic, my ds2 has just done it on just slightly over min wage and his partner is min wage.
Nice 3 bed semi 1930's style.
It depends where you live and how much debt you want, they went nowhere near their limit luckily, so if there's a price crash they should be ok, as not looking to sell, and would have to fall to half price or more before they would be in negative equity.
We live in the NW, it's reasonable here, most young folk on min wage manage it in their twenties.

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%,

This. I lost 30k on my first home.

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

Are they? Aren’t most of the lock down rules breakers younger people??

Who is going to pay for that then OP? My 2 teenagers don't seem troubled by it at all, maybe slightly bored at times, but playing a lot of Fortnite, Red Dead, GTA, Anno, Civ VI etc etc! If anything one seems happier as he hated sixth form!

Who do you think should pay for this housing?

Do you really believe that young people have never suffered in previous generations? Many young people these days live the sort of life their grandparents could only dream about.

I think you need to learn a little more history before coming out with such an outrageous statement.

lol a reward??

they've been carrying on working through all this or they've been on xboxes/tinder/tiktok

and its been.....barely THREE WEEKS!!!

Dream on....

@Ordree
Very interesting post,
but next time, just get some pigeons, and then a cat...😊

It’s shit for everyone. Being a young person doesn’t make it more difficult. Ffs get a grip.
Why should any one group benefit more than another ?

my 'young adults' are in the process of buying a house of their own, they dont want affordable housing thanks

can they have a different reward instead please? whats on the covid 19 young persons reward list?

@Ordree, I agree but you won’t find many people on MN who do.

Because most people have bought the idea that if a 30yo catches the CV-19 they will die (very u likely though)

Because they’ve also bought the idea that the older generation had it really hard compare to the millennials etc... and tbh I dint think they do.

They had booming prosperity, no war, the ability to buy a house and most importantly the HOPE that they could be doing better for themselves.

If you talk to the 20 something, they will see a very bleak future in front of them. Not the fantastic future I was sold when I was 20 yo (but never saw) and not the great changes that the baby boomers lived through (which include a massive increase in wealth seeing in the fact that wealth is now in the hands of said babyboomers....)

How do other age groups get rewarded?

You can be as vituperative as you like in your disagreement, make patronising statements suggesting I know no history nor economics, I still think younger people deserve a way better world economically, socially and in terms of climate change than the one older generations have left for them

🤣🤣🤣🤣

The biggest things the young people of today don't have are not the material items in your OP, and it is the older generations fault.

In an attempt to raise children to have what they never had, to raise them in a kinder way with more carrot then stick, too many have inadvertently raised entitled and lazy young adults who expect everything handed to them right now instead of working for it over decades from nothing like their parents did.

It has been 3 weeks 🤦🏻‍♀️

@Outtedagain, it’s not about wanting one group to benefit more. It’s about the fact that one group IS benefitting more.

In the same way that we know that the working class and the people who are paid the least is the group who is the most affected by the epidemy. They are the people stacking shelves and cleaning hospitals. They are the nurses and the carers. They are the people still doing the deliveries to our houses. And they are also the ones least likely to get furlough with a decent salary (hello zero hour contract!) or the ones most likely to be made redundant.

Saying that we are all equal in front of the epidemy is a lie.

The very fact that you're talking about 'deserving' shows is exactly what's wrong with the world.

No one deserves anything except basic human rights.

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.

^^ this in spades.

FFS with all the news being about the virus just wait till it recedes and the economy is once again at the forefront of the news. We're fucked. There won't be a huge cash pot to give anyone anything let alone free houses, tuition fees and universal income. (No matter what the left want you to believe!)

It’s shit for everyone. Being a young person doesn’t make it more difficult. Ffs get a grip.
Why should any one group benefit more than another ?
Firstly, I don't need to "get a grip" whatever that means. Secondly one group have benefited above others: the older generations who have vast unearned equity. It is because I'd like to see this balance redressed that Id like to see more generational fairness.

Also, what sacrifices are young people making?

you do, you really do need to 'get a grip' (on reality if nothing more)