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!

Well of course you are feeling the pressure around finances your husband earns £1200 per month that is dreadful when he has a degree.

I think your issue is not ‘boomers’ and ‘generational wealth’ it’s your lazy husband who is earning a paltry amount per month.

Anyone in full time employment shouldn't need benefits to live

If we could fix that - those at the top get less and those at the bottom get more

The country would be in a much better place

Was it easier for boomers, in many respects yes, especially housing costs, you could get a mortgage on one salary.
Having said that, I have a.much better standard of living compared to my parents, I'm 41 for reference. Neither DH or I have a degree and our household income is 130k, we have a large house, foreign holidays and 2DC.
Your household income is low, you DH needs to look at alternative roles.

I don’t disagree OP. The issue for today’s generation is the cost of housing vs wages, which typically means both parents have to work, adding extra childcare costs.

Many pensioners benefitted from generous final salary pension schemes that are not longer viable in the private sector, so I cannot hope to have the retirement my parents have. I get that some may not have a pension, but a typical trip to Sainsbury’s shows how many pensioners have brand new cars.

I also don’t agree that the boomer generation didn’t have luxuries we have. I remember a childhood of holidays, meals out, take aways, household appliances and the odd avocado! But the difference is only one parent worked and my folks could afford more kids and a bigger house on an equivalent of just one of mine and DHs wages.

Also the rhetoric of working hard! They had no mobile phone or laptops meaning they took work home or answered calls on holiday. When my dad was home from work, he was home! Lots of work jollies, lunches out, dinner dances, company cars that were not taxed to the max.

I certainly don’t begrudge my parents the money they have, and am happy when they spend it now while they still have their health. But it’s unfair to say that younger generations have it easier. It’s obvious with the lack of housing affordability, the hours both parents have to work and the amount of mental health issues that younger generations have that many are massively struggling.

A major contributing factor to the current situation is the tripling of house prices that occurred between 1995 and 2005. Anyone who bought prior to 1995 ended up with huge amounts of equity. Anyone who bought after 2005 ended up with crippling debt.
In the 70's and earlier it was not particularly profitable to have buy-to-let property. It now is. All boomers are not to blame. But the ones who've loaded up on BTL properties, fueling house price inflation, then rent them back to their children's generation while telling their children they just need to work harder are absolutely to blame.

I'm Old gen x too and many of my acquaintances and friends have had a lot of money gifted to them via inheritances and most of that is from property.
Dh and I had parents who didn't buy homes , so we were always a lot less well off than many my age and struggled, but it is so much harder now than it was then and we didn't have it particularly easy, but it felt more manageable

All of these people banging on about “maximising your earning potential”

let’s imagine you have a couple living in the south east.

Shes a hairdresser, he’s a plumber. They’re in a 1 bed rented flat because that’s all they can afford. No kids because they can’t afford them.

Their options are

1. go off and retrain to “maximise their earning potential” but then who is going to cut your hair and fix your shower? Some has to and I don’t think you want it being immigrants do you?
2. move out of the area they were born and raised in to somewhere else with no family support. Why should they?
3. crack on as is, work themselves to the bone and maybe in 10 years they’ll have a small deposit enough to buy said 1 bed flat, but nothing bigger.

Instead of asking people to “maximise their earning potential” or move, society should be set up so that people doing jobs that are valuable pay enough that people are able to live a good life. Housing should be affordable, and working people should be able to achieve their aspirations.

Our country currently doesn’t offer this

I think each generation has its struggles. I don’t expect to retire as such and think many people will be working part time. As others have said your dh could earn more then another child may be possible and money not so tight.

Agree with this. Growing up we had no holidays abroad and meals out rarely. It’s the expectation today that most people go to university and so have loans. Yes university fees were free or very low for the previous generation but very few people went compared to today. People left school
at 16 or 18 and worked their way up. Saving as they went. You have choices. With a degree your husband should be earning a lot more.

I honestly think this generation want it all. The ‘boomers’ as you call them, made do with what they could afford at the time. Couldn’t afford three kids? Didn’t have that third one. Couldn’t afford to have two cars? Made do with the one, or none at all. Couldn’t afford that two week all inclusive to Greece? Made do with a week in Whitby. Little Simon wanted the latest designer gear and toys? Had to do without. Not enough bedrooms for child to have one each? Put bunk beds in the room, and made do. These days though, people think it’s poverty to not have a two car family, not to have that holiday every year, and of course little Simon (Boden) should be able to have that PS5. And why shouldn’t they be able to have children they can’t afford? The state should pay for them, not capping child benefit entitlement. Note too, there was hardly any child care facilities in the ‘old’ days. So please spare us the whinging. You’ve got it good. Just lower your expectations, and take responsibilty for the position you’re in. 🙄

"Low salaries", plural? Yes, the DH's salary is low, but OP earns £50k, which is £15k more than the national average.

YANBU, OP. Yes, there is a much bigger disconnect between incomes and costs than there was a few decades ago. My 80yo DM freely admits that her generation had the best of everything in terms of free higher education (and generous maintenance grants), low unemployment, affordable housing, good pensions and all the rest. And now I meet people younger than me who can't believe I didn't have to pay tuition fees at university and left with no debt, and feel like I was the privileged one...our standard of living has gone backwards, wages haven't increased in real terms for years, social mobility is worse than is was 50 years ago, and it's depressing. It's only people with an extremely poor grasp of maths who can't understand simple things like the fact that 50 years ago the average house cost 3x the average salary and now it's 10x, and so on. I think the "you'd be able to afford a house if you gave up Netflix" crowd don't really believe it themselves - they just need to believe that their own prosperity is entirely down to their own hard work and moral superiority and absolutely nothing to do with timing and luck.

The thing that stands out to me is that both you and your DH have degrees, which must have incurred substantial debt in student loans, and yet between you you’re only earning maybe £70k a year. Your DH needs to utilise his degree and get a better paid job - his workplace pension is going to be pants!

The difference is that they would not have a university loan to pay and will have been earning from a younger age. For the record, plumbing is a very lucrative career with good earning potential. And personally I would be very happy for anyone to fix a plumbing problem. I don’t care where they are from.

@MumCanIHaveASnackPlease Plumber is a bad example, plumbers can earn pretty well and can maximise their earnings by taking on extra or more specialist jobs.

The OPs husband must be workomg very short hours as his monthly wage is well below what someone working full time on minimum wage would earn. Things would be better if he either took more hours or got a higher paid job.

I think part time school support jobs were always a secondary pin money jobs no?

OP my DC is 18 and doing an apprenticeship and is earning more per month than your husband. TA is a notoriously low paid job so i think when you say 'I hear people say that our generation just needs to work harder, or get better paid jobs' I agree with those people that if you want more money then your husband needs a better paid job.

OP you are at the exact age to have been uniquely shafted. Wages haven't increased since the 2008 crash i.e. your entire working life. Meanwhile the cost of student loans, homeownership, renting and childcare has rocketed. I'm a similar age to you and many of my peers got on the property ladder in a Sellers' market just a couple of years before interest rates jumped. One is already selling her first home because she can't afford the mortgage anymore. Our generation really can't catch a break. I hope it's easier for the next generation but it's not looking likely.

Thank you I agree, someone has to do this job and it’s important he enjoys it he is good at it, and he supports children and young people with SEND and who need extra support.

To answer other questions:

Yes he has a degree. When we met he was finishing his off and I was doing my undergraduate degree.

He works in a private school and could earn more in a state school doing the same role but he is happy and settled and been there for 10 years.

He works school open to school close (8.30-4) plus one afterschool club once a week and he works every day of term time yet he is classed as part time.

He could absolutely train to be a teacher and I have encouraged this multiple times over the years but he doesn’t think he’s capable or wants that stress and pressure. I feel I need to support what he feels comfortable with.

For additional context he has struggled with social anxiety his entire adult life that we strongly suspect is actually undiagnosed autism (he hasn’t wanted to pursue a diagnosis at this point).

If the roles were reversed and the earnings were the other way around would there be this much push back on it? Especially with a young child?

Husband picks up the vast majority of the housework.

It’s rough out there OP. But your husband is nearly 40 and working in an unskilled job. What’s the issue here? Unavoidable health issues?

Why is it a bad example? You’ll find thousands of such couples up and down the country working themselves to the bone for just the slight prospect of one day maybe owning a 1 bedroom flat.

I’ve only ever seen this attitude towards boomers on MN. Positively hates them. Methinks that by the end of page 40 this thread will have morphed into yet another boomer bashing exercise.

It’s partly true though your points still stand. Immigration has vastly increased the population in a short time so the pressure on housing is even greater. I’m not talking about people arriving at Dover in a dinghy.

U.K. population was 56 million in 1972. Fifty years later it was 68 million. Large numbers of completely legal and above-board immigrants have contributed to that number. Not refugees, not asylum seekers.

@MumCanIHaveASnackPlease it's a bad example of a "low paid low skilled job". Plumbing is a skilled job and plumbers have the potential to earn pretty well, especiallyif they are prepared to take on out of hours or specialist work.

This sums it up for me.

But I do think you have to honestly look at your DH's salary and ask why he is doing the job he is, with a degree, at his age and is not advancing himself at all.

If you DH was earning a decent wage you would not be struggling as you are. You also really need to consider his pension aspect of this as well.

I realise we need all forms of roles to be fulfilled, but at his age without any career progression (retraining etc) this is limiting you as a family. I was earning that monthly salary 37 years ago and when you consider inflation etc it puts it into perspective.

This is the crux of OP's issue/problem. Husband needs a rocket.

In general, the house price / wage ratio is what most people are finding is the difference, mainly brought around by availability of housing. (supply / demand = rising prices)

Ah cross post. I guess one of the things I looked for in a partner is shared ambition and drive and the desire to give our children a nice home, holidays and saving for their future. DH and I both earn around 50k in jobs we are passionate about and split the childcare and household responsibilities. I wouldn’t be happy if he was in a low paid job and happy to live off my wages and neither would he be happy if I did that.