£10k ‘gift’ won’t solve crisis for young people
THE work carried out by the Resolution Foundation should be a good starting point for all of the work that needs to be done to deal with the “intergenerational issues” it highlights.
But it won’t go anywhere near solving all of the problems that exist, which are stopping young people getting on the housing ladder and older people paying off their mortgages and retiring when they want to retire.
I spoke to a group of young people who would be affected by the proposed changes and they were unanimous in their view that a one-off gift of £10,000 would be like putting a sticking plaster on a bullet wound.
Young people are looking for a career structure that gives them some guarantees and stability, not a series of zero hours contract jobs on minimum wages. We need to start to see salaries rising again and at least keeping pace with inflation. That is the only way to start to see real progress in the standards of living of young people.
And we need to see something done in the housing market. I was in London earlier this week and in an Estate Agents window I saw flats advertised for £3000 per month. That’s £36,000 a year out of net income. That’s just crazy.
But for any of the changes to be effective, politicians need to start thinking long-term about how they can actually work together to help people rather than how they save their careers.
They need to stop thinking in terms of their own shortterm political gain and start to deal with the issues that have been building up over the last decade or so and are now at crisis point for many.