Generational wealth differences

[KeenGreen]

My first AIBU so let’s see what I’m in for!

First to make clear none of the problems now are the fault of previous generations. It is not a blame game!!

So AIBU to be frustrated with the rhetoric that todays generations of young families have it no harder than previous generations in terms of wealth and they just need to be more frugal to have the same standard of living??

I am sick of hearing the idea that older generations. So called boomers (for the record I don’t like this term) didn’t have it easier than younger generations.

I am 38 I have worked since I was 16, lived independently since 17. Put myself through university all the way through to PhD. My husband is 39 works in a school as support staff (LSA) and takes up circa £1200 a month. He has a degree.
I work in a university and earn just under £50K before tax so our household income is probably about £65K not the lowest by any stretch but enough for us to struggle to balance costs. We claim child benefit but otherwise no extra help.
Husband only works term time of course, but that means he’s around for our child during holidays.

We have one DC age 5, and can’t afford any more.
Our closest family lives over 2 hours away, so we have no family support with childcare or help if there is a sick day or anything.

We have a mortgaged small semi detached 1930s house with 3 bedrooms, It needs a lot of work but we haven’t been able to do much because of time and money. Current mortgage fix ends in 2026 and I expect our mortgage repayments to go up by about 50% extra £300 a month.

We pay off student loans and my pension contributions are also high.
I took only 6 months maternity leave because I couldn’t afford to go to half pay for long and not into no pay at all.

My husband had virtually nothing in his workplace pension because of low earnings.
Mine is keep being devalued because of sector changes and it’s definitely not the best pension in education. (Teachers pensions are better).
I can’t even imagine what it will be like to try and live off my workplace pension alone and I would have to go all the way up to retirement age which I can’t imagine myself doing in a stressful job.

Retirement age for us is currently 68, that means we have 30 more years.
But with the way things are going I have no hope that there will be a state pension at all for us, or the age will be pushed even higher, so will probably be dead! Despite the fact I will have been paying in with tax national insurance for 50 plus years by that point.

I just feel frustrated about this idea that I hear people say that our generation just needs to work harder, or get better paid jobs etc because it’s not that easy. We both work hard in the education sector. Enjoy our jobs for the most part and find them fulfilling albeit stressful at times!

Like I said not about blaming previous generations for the picture we are in, but I don’t like the rhetoric of ‘well interest rates went up to 15% in my day’ etc when house prices were so much lower in proportion to wages and the cost of living right now and inflation over the last 10 years shows wages haven’t increased in line with this.

ps I know we are not the most hard done by! But still feel the pinch and we certain don’t live an extravagant lifestyle!

Many people around this age were impacted heavily by the 2008 recession; coming of age at a time where there were limited jobs, hardly any training or graduate schemes, and less access to credit. Its been downhill ever since with rent sky-rocketing but wages stuck in 2002. Each financial crisis there's a focus on 'young people' but everyone forgets the people who were young during the previous crisis who have never recovered. Every generation has its struggles.

And obviously, a nice new warm wetsuit... Cornish water is cold!

I think they are probably making the argument that boomers benefited from the strongest economy to ever exist due to a post world war economic boom. They benefited from a prosperous job market and gold plated pensions while implementing laws and policies that created an economic hellscape for the generations after them, but which directly benefited themselves (Housing crisis, pension crisis, cutting their own taxes and racking up national debt many times gdp, ignoring climate change etc). There’s quite a lot of literature and arguments out there supporting this.

I think you mean Tory voters

Surely if we have half the ill-gotten gains you think we have, we'll be able to go private? 🤷‍♀️

I shall be interested to read your reaction to the outcome of today's election in Germany when the vote swings rightwing. I do know that a lot of people think the Tories are evil. But understanding that a society has to have the cash to fund the calls for benefits is another direction to reality.

Oh it’s not down to luck, just good life planning 👍

Tbh you seem to be doing really well

You have an education, family, home, a job in your chosen field and hopefully your health

As a family you are able to make plenty of time and love available for your DC

Given you only completed your phd perhaps 8 or 9 years ago, then your 50k salary is good and suggests you may still be on an upward path.

I am assuming you have USS defined benefit pension, which on your salary is worth about 16k a year on top of your pay.

After you fix ends you will be paying c. 11k on your mortgage out of c. 65k of income.

You are already in are in top quartile of income for the UK population and you are both young

Given this you would be unreasonable to be complaining about your lot. I think that would grate with people from any generation.

YANBU to be complaining about lazy narratives involving money spent on avocados. But you are also too intelligent to believe anybody outside of the Daily Mail readership think this.

Did you post this as part of some sort of research exercise you are undertaking?

Life rarely goes to plan I'm afraid. But you have done an excellent job of showing your true colours.

You have no ability to take from the public purse. There are laws against that and you go to gaol if you do. You may be eligible to receive from the state but that is a different engagement.

You cannot possibly know if you were a net contributor or not. Neither you, nor any professor from Warwick University or LSE, has the ability to work out whether you are a net giver or taker. Money is fungible. Society is fungible.

Given that the UK is £3 trillion in debt, which can just about be laid equally over the last 30 years between Labour governments, Conservative governments and external events, you are going to be a net taker. That is just the principal. Servicing that debt comes at significant cost. About £1 in £7 raised in tax revenue today goes on interest to pay back the national debt. The UK will still be servicing that debt when you are in your box.

Debt that has helped fund farming subsidies, police, anti-terrorism, street lights, flood defences, cancer care.

Those that are net contributors are people like Stephen Restorick's family. You will have to google the name because otherwise it means nothing to you.

And what would those be……..pray tell me, oh, all seeing oracle?

Hmm if it was the wife who worked part time and looked after kids would she also be considered lazy?

He doesn’t work part time.

Honestly you don't need a crystal ball to see what's happening in the UK to our standard of living.
But ok I'm sure it'll all be fine for you with your private health care. Just don't count on it...

Don’t have private health care…..just takes my chances like everyone else!
So….all seeing eye……what does the future hold for you?

Oh ok, you've just jumped on now and latched onto my posts. Maybe you should read the whole thread and try harder

Of course he does. What would you call 9.00 to 4.30 and 16 weeks holiday a year?

So all teachers work part time?

I think there is a portion of society that had relatively cheap essentials and expensive luxuries. Now we have expensive essentials and cheap luxuries.

I'm late to this thread, but this is a great observation.

Yes, this does contribute to the intergenerational tensions

Effectively, yes, in a sense. (One of my children is a fine one). However, as a TA he won't have the lesson prep and marking which bump up a teacher's hours so much.

You do know state teachers are only paid for 39 weeks of the year? However, they do earn a fair bit more than the OP's husband.

@Papyrophile

After your post to which I replied, where you said you had received nothing from the state, I read this from you:

My pension is not means tested because it is a direct contribution pension: only I have paid money into it, and HMRC which doesn't want me to be a burden on the state in my dotage, has foregone the taxes I would have paid on that income. So when I am dotty at 88, there should still be something in the pot to defray the expenses... but I plan a fancy seawater suicide... quick click, job done, all the paperwork in an envelope on my desk... big hugs xx

The tax relief on your pension has been given to you not by HMRC (they are administrators) but by parliament. Whether you elected for salary sacrifice or not, you have had (by your own statement) 40% tax relief on that built up fund, plus tax-free growth. In other words, for every £60 you put in you got £40 from the Treasury. That is a financial return of 67% in the first year. That is fantastic and a sensible policy and I as much as anybody deplore 'Big State'.

However, you have received generously from the public purse, despite your belief you have not.

As I said to another poster, you might be one of the loudest to complain if we moved back to a feudal fiefdom type of society.

Effectively accross the year maybe but he can’t turn around to the school and say I would like to up my hours to full time like someone else working part time can. He gets in at 8.30 and leaves at 4.30 which is an 8 hour day and a 35 hour week which is officially a full time week.

what he can do is find a better paying job for his skills whether it be traditional part time or full time, but he doesn’t want to as is his choice but it just makes it difficult for the OP for them to get wealthier.

I do not think you can just get very comfortable on a standard job anymore. You need to think outside the box and get a business on TikTok, invest some of the proceeds in eg US tech stocks etc, this is how some people your generation and younger are making money who are not inheriting. There are tons and tons of opportunities now with the internet and all the information available. You need to research carefully though and inform yourself.

This. I was talking about this with my mum and gran, and housing/bills were cheaper but owning a washing machine/car/clothes etc were more expensive then.