Agree with this. From a personal point of view and a renter at 40 I'm beggining to not really give a fuck anymore about trying as I don't think we have good social mobility in this country and making an effort to get ahead is futile. I earn an average wage as does my partner, so have a good household income. We have always been frugal and still can't get on the property ladder. Meanwhile my mother who stacked shelves as a single parent with three kids to care for could back in the 90's. She survived on income support when we were young so no childcare costs, then got offered to buy her council house with no deposit. Things needed to go to shit back in 2008, but our government carried on with low interest rates and QE, so myself and younger people have always been chasing ever increasing values while our wages did not keep up. I had a lot of friends from abroad live here. They have all gone home and they couldn't build a future here. That was when I realised we were a bit shit and had massively over estimated ourselves as a country.
I could try and get promoted, but I'm NHS and the wage structure says I would earn little more than 500 pounds a year for much, much more responsibility and it won't change for two years. The wage structure in the NHS is bonkers and its ridiculous that I could live in the northeast and get paid the same when what I pay for a small flat here would get you a four bed detached house at least there. And before someone suggests moving - I don't want to uproot my family and move away from my parents and siblings. I want to live in my hometown. Anyone filling my role will just have the same issues anyway.
What i want to know is why austerity for so many years increased the deficit when it was supposed to be shrinking it, and why we seem to think it is the best strategy now. We are really in a bad position where every option to fix this mess is very, very painful. I think they are just going to let inflation run rampant unfortunately.