No country for young men — UK generation gap widens

setmefree2

FROM THE Original Post (FT) A major reason for the shift is the rise in house prices in recent decades. Many older people bought cheap and have locked in sizeable gains, although, with people living longer, some are now facing the prospect of having to sell those homes to pay for expensive care.

I live in London and in my avenue/area there are quite a lot of pensioners. It seems to me, that their houses are worth a lot of money but their living standards seem extremely poor.... they mostly own houses that haven't been updated to London standards. I've met pensioners who still have no CH. Generally, they don't have double glazing (double glazed sashes are the norm) - they don't have loft conversions, extensions, etc. Generally, when they die a builder will buy their house and update it.

If they have a car at all, it will be an old one. They holiday little, they "do" little, they buy little, they "have" little....

I'm saving hard for a "good" retirement.... I would hate for my retirement years to be like theirs.

So no, that generation don't seem that well off to me.....

N1AK

setmefree2 wrote: »

If they have a car at all, it will be an old one. They holiday little, they "do" little, they buy little, they "have" little....

I'm saving hard for a "good" retirement.... I would hate for my retirement years to be like theirs.

So no, that generation don't seem that well off to me.....

You can't judge a generation based on a couple of people living on your road. You can find examples at either end of the spectrum. My grandparents lifestyle would be entirely impossible to a couple trying to bring up 4 kids on an equivalent single income today. I'd be as wrong to assume that all pensioners are as well off as they are, as you'd be to assume they're all as badly off as your neighbours.

Aberdeenangarse

thequant wrote: »

Today yoof are the luckiest generation in history, the boomers have had to work for all that wealth, which will one day will be passed onto the yoof without them lifting a finger

Does Rodger lift his finger?

chucknorris

pollypenny wrote: »

Here we go again!

I am a baby boomer, married at 20, OH 24. We rented at first and saved like mad for a 10% deposit. Mortgages were equally hard to get. We had to prove that we could save and were turned down by one building society as we had a car loan. Car needed for OH to get to work.

We didn't have holidays and our social life consisted of cinema, followed by fish and chips or friends round for the odd beer.

Houses were also more simple. Ours came with a sink unit in the kitchen and a gas Fire in the front room. We couldn't afford central heating as it was £350 more.

The truth of the matter is that most young people struggle when they start off, unless their families are well off and able to help. Maybe my generation did better as we tended to settle down early.

That seems like an awful lot of effort and sacrifice, why didn't you simply do what the rest of us boomers did and save 12 Kellog's Cornflakes packet tops, and then exchange them for a house?

pollypenny

danothy wrote: »

How long of saving like mad did it take you to save up two years' gross income?

I'm desperately trying to work it out. Probably three years.

We also moved house at 40, into a better school area, took on a bigger mortgage and soon found ourselves paying 15% for our mortgage.

Some of today's Young people will benefit from low interest rates on their mortgages, if they have them, while those saving will suffer from the same low interest rates as we pensioners.

ruggedtoast

While it's true that many boomers started out hungry, they are now on their third helping of the pie and they are lining up for fourths.

They are smacking their lips while those who are young now have had a meager serving. The young are told to be thankful but where is the thanks when you see someone stuffing themselves with a banquet, telling you to wait your turn when it is clear that when it is your turn, there will be nothing left.

Cyberman60

ruggedtoast wrote: »

While it's true that many boomers started out hungry, they are now on their third helping of the pie and they are lining up for fourths.

They are smacking their lips while those who are young now have had a meager serving. The young are told to be thankful but where is the thanks when you see someone stuffing themselves with a banquet, telling you to wait your turn when it is clear that when it is your turn, there will be nothing left.

Rubbish really as many youngsters nowadays are going to get bequeathed loadsamoney. My neighbour died last year and his 20 something son who never visited him (he told me he would have preferred a daughter) now has his own paid-for house worth 400K.

Jason74

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

There's a clue for you in there.

It starts with the word "relative"....

Much like with "relative poverty", where even the poorest have got significantly richer over the last 50 years, but we can claim "relative poverty" has increased as the rich have done even better.

I suspect you'll find the "living standards" of both young and old have increased markedly, but the old (and lets not forget many of them used to live in dire poverty in absolute, not relative terms) have seen a bigger increase than the young.

Meaning the 'relativity' index shows what it does.

Despite both groups being better off.

That's true in most respects, and in itself I can't argue with much of that. But I have a major issue with that being seen as the whole picture, for two reasons.


Firstly, I think that there is a real issue about how the benefits of a growing economy are distributed. What we've seen in recent years is that more benefits are felt by older people than younger, and that more are felt by richer people than those who are poorer. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of perspective (and I suspect our views here would differ). But there can be little doubt that this is what is happening, and that there are consequences for us as a society of this.


Secondly (and I think this is the big issue as far as this thread is concerned) is that the prospects for people of today's under 30s building assets for themselves (particularly in terms of home ownership) without family / inherited money are dramatically worse than was the case for boomers, or even people my age (I'm 40). 40 years ago, it was perfectly normal for a middle earning person to be able to own a home, even on a single income, and even in London, now (in London at least) the prospect of an equivalent earner reaching the same point in most of London and the South East is dramatically reduced. Even my own pad in London would be way out of the reach of someone doing the job I did when I bought it, and that was only 13 years ago.


The trend of rising living standards doesn't change these realities, and in particular, says nothing of a growing asset inequality that is largely generational. And no, I', mot talking about the fact that older people have more because they've had more time to build the assets. I'm talking about the fact that older people have more because than young people today will have when they get older because the environment when they were younger was better suited to "ordinary" people building assets in the past than it is today. And as it stands, I can only see that situation getting worse.

lisyloo

because the environment when they were younger was better suited to "ordinary" people building assets in the past than it is today

There was more to go around e.g. housing supply and less global competition for jobs.
I personally don't believe that's anyone's fault and I'm not sure what should/can be done without other consequences.

ruggedtoast

A clear solution is to build more housing. But getting a house built in the Boomer Belt is like pushing a pea up a mountain whilst blowing through a straw.

Nimbyism is rife. Landlords cling jealously to their prized investments. Planning applications are denied.