Generation born when the Queen took throne are richest in history

THE Platinum Jubilee generation are the richest in history, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found, as those born in the year of Her Majesty’s accession turn 70.

The 1952 vintage have benefited from “strong growth in earnings in the 1980s and 1990s” and “rode the wave of the UK’S property price boom”, the report said.

Many in this generation also gained from the 1980s heyday for pensions, when those in white-collar jobs, the public sector or in denationalised industries, had gold-plated final salary pensions. The report notes that the cohort has continued to enjoy “the increasing generosity of the state pension in more recent years”.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said they were “truly the golden generation”.

“This really is extraordinary and unprecedented,” he wrote on Twitter, “[It was] true even when they were bringing up children and now as they enter old age.”

When they were 25, at the time of the Silver Jubilee, their average incomes were £12,500 (expressed in 2020–21 prices), compared with £10,700 for the whole of the UK.

The peak of their incomes came just after the Golden Jubilee when, in 2005, they had average incomes of £27,800, a full £5,700 higher than the UK average.

They now have incomes of £26,400 per year, 6 per cent higher than the average, the report said.

“These changes reflect some of the big economic and social shifts that have happened in the UK since the 1950s,” David Sturrock, Senior Research Economist at the IFS, said, noting that younger generations are “much less likely” to be homeowners.

Eight-five per cent of the “Platinum generation” are homeowners and one in seven owns a second home. In 1952, the average property price was £2,000 – around £40,000 in today’s prices – and today stands at £260,000.

“Incomes and house prices have grown dramatically, making this generation the richest to date,” Mr Sturrock added.

In 2021 it was reported that homeowners earned more from their properties than their jobs, for the first time in 20 years.

However, not all members of this generation are wealthy, and 18 per cent are in relative income poverty, though this is still lower than the national average of 22 per cent. During the Silver Jubilee year in 1977, those over state pension age were more than twice as likely to be poor than those under state pension age.

Elsewhere in the report, the IFS found that in 1952, life expectancy for those turning 70 was 79 for men and 82 for women. For the Platinum Jubilee generation turning 70 now, this has risen to 86 and 88 for men and women.

The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing has followed this age group since the time of the Golden Jubilee to track the changes.