More evidence of increasing wealth gap

cells

Jon_B wrote: »

The inheritance piece is a complete red herring.

People are living so long that by the time many people "inherit" wealth it has either gone in care fees or the recipients are near retirement themselves.

Although this might be true for individuals it's not true on average. The last time I looked the official ibheritence figures were £72 billion that year andthats a few years out its likely to be running closer to £100 billion a year now. This also does not take onto account gifts which will also be in the same ballpark. Overall I estimate £200 billion a year moves from the oldies to the younger ones.

chucknorris

cells wrote: »

Education and information is now free back a generation ago it was very costly. The price of a degree might have gone up but the price of information has fallen to zero. It's also not a direct cost it's more akin to a higher tax rate and taxes today even with the grad tax taxes are lower than yesteryear.

Also less than 50% go to university so its not a problem for them. Plus you can do a distance learning course from a good university like the UOL for about £5k all in. I also think it would be possible to do that while also working a dull time 37h/WK job if someone was dedicated enough certainly possible working part time. If said person States with their parents and earnt just £7k a year at the end if the three years they would have £21k minus the £5k cost so starting out with £16k rather than the -£40k that seems to be mandatory but it clearly isn't

The part timers outnumber the full timers at our university in our faculty, and of course not only are they employed and earning, but also their employers pay their course fees too. Also some students start off full time, but later switch to part time.

ViolaLass

JamesN wrote: »

My dad is going to retire at 55, he's worked hard but no more so than I have. I doubt I'll be able to retire before I'm 70.

Wrong comparison. How many years of retirement will he have and how many will you have?

We're going to retire later because we'll live longer. Those extra years cost.

lippy1923

dealer_wins wrote: »

Not many people born in the 1990s would choose to be born in the 1960s/70s if they could experience it.

Times were hard then trust me.

I'm a 90's kid and definitely would not choose to be born in the 70's. I seriously believe we have never had a quality of life so good. The things available in life now, from health, education, technology and general life experiences, now is the time to be alive!

ruperts

cells wrote: »

Use your own judgement to figure out how wrong this report must be


Would you rather be a 15 year old kid today or would you rather be a 15 year old kid in 1980?

The kid today gets to go to university while his pal needs to get a health harming job in the steel mill. The kid today probably had multiple family holidays and will likely have multiple more by age 30 his pal probably had no holidays nor will he to 30. The kid today will probably learn to drive and buy a car for his pal that was a lot harder. Even if they both do achieve a car one has a high risk crap car the other a modern one. The kid today has had a life full of education information computers fee movies and music while his pal had Mr blobby on Chanel 4. The kid today is more healthy and will live longer and will probably even be taller and stronger than his pal of yesteryear. The kid today will likely have better quality parents and a better society. The kid today will have a wage that can buy more of almost everything.

The only 'downside' is that the kid today needs to wait to age 45 to get an inheritences rather than age 30 for the kid of yesteryear.

I still think the report is nonsense but even if you believe the sum total of the wealth of someone age 30 is lower now than a generation ago you have to accept that you are not comparing like with like.

The report compares people born in the 70's with people born in the 80's whereas you seem to be comparing people born in something like the 50's or 60's with people born in the late 90's. So straight away many of the conclusions you've reached on the validity of the report are flawed.


Compared to people born in the 70's, people born in the 80's have faced considerably higher education costs, much less guarantee of a good job upon completion of education, a much worse economic climate in which to build a career and drastically higher housing costs.


Some of your other points about type of jobs and availability of internet are irrelavent. The type of jobs available to 80's kids entering the work force in the 2000's were not hugely different to the type's of jobs available to 70's kids entering in the mid 90's, except for the 70's kids the better jobs were slightly easier to get. You're talking about the difference in jobs available to people born in about 1940 compared to people born in the 2000's, and that's fair enough, but it's a totally different comparison to the one the report is making.


Likewise, the internet wasn't a source of education for people born in the 80's any more than it was for people born in the 70's. I was born in the 80's and trust me, that intermittant 56k dial up connection did not open up a world of free education for the 16-year-old me. You were lucky if the image you were downloading got as low as the shoulders before the connection cut out. Even today it's nothing like the education panacea you're making it out to be.


The point of the report is that for the first time in modern British history, an adult generation is worse off than the one before it. It doesn't say that generation is worse off than the one 80 years before it, just that it's worse off than the one immediately before it.


And that should be worrying to anyone with a stake in the future of this country because there's a trend emerging. All those things that 80's kids have struggled with are looking even worse for 90's and 2000's kids. Education is now even more expensive and even less a guarantee of a good job, wages just aren't growing at all and getting on the housing ladder is becoming a pipe-dream. You might not think that's any of your concern but what do you think that generation of bright young people will do when they realise this country isn't working for them? Who is going to fund your state pension when all those kids pack up and leave? What's the country going to be like when we've lost an entire generation of talent?

Thrugelmir

ruperts wrote: »

Some of your other points about type of jobs and availability of internet are irrelavent. The type of jobs available to 80's kids entering the work force in the 2000's were not hugely different to the type's of jobs available to 70's kids entering in the mid 90's, except for the 70's kids the better jobs were slightly easier to get. You're talking about the difference in jobs available to people born in about 1940 compared to people born in the 2000's, and that's fair enough, but it's a totally different comparison to the one the report is making.

Technology has moved at quite a pace. (IBM didn't invent the PC until 1981). With it the nature of work. Looking at my own industry (Finance). The past 20 years has seen significant change. Less people. Those that are employed are more administration orientated rather than professional or technical. Around 1997, a good credit controller could earn £18k a year. Now it's a job reading a script off a screen.

ruperts

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Technology has moved at quite a pace. (IBM didn't invent the PC until 1981). With it the nature of work. Looking at my own industry (Finance). The past 20 years has seen significant change. Less people. Those that are employed are more administration orientated rather than professional or technical. Around 1997, a good credit controller could earn £18k a year. Now it's a job reading a script off a screen.

My point was in relation to the poster I quoted talking about jobs 'down the mines' and such like; talking about the differences of jobs five or six generations apart rather than just the one that was highlighted in the report. But you're absolutely right of course, and that's another reason why things are more difficult now than they were decades ago. The concept of a skilled job for life is unrealistic in an age of such rapid change. A 16-year-old aiming for a certain career today may very well find it has become obsolete by the time they reach their mid-20's. That pace of change presents real and lasting challenges for young people who will need to maintain relevant skills throughout careers spanning 50+ years.

ukcarper

The confusion has come because people born in the 70s are mainly children of the boomers perhaps the report should not have mentioned boomers.

JamesN

ViolaLass wrote: »

Wrong comparison. How many years of retirement will he have and how many will you have?

We're going to retire later because we'll live longer. Those extra years cost.

As much as I would like it to be true. i don't think human life span will go up 15 years between someone who is 55 and someone who is 28. Yes healthcare has improved but it's not like we are going to have drugs that rejuvenate cells. We can just treat diseases better. So I think it absolutely a fair comparison.

Working an extra 15 years will take its toll. So I imagine I will have a shorter retirement.

JamesN

cells wrote: »

Education and information is now free back a generation ago it was very costly. The price of a degree might have gone up but the price of information has fallen to zero. It's also not a direct cost it's more akin to a higher tax rate and taxes today even with the grad tax taxes are lower than yesteryear.

Also less than 50% go to university so its not a problem for them. Plus you can do a distance learning course from a good university like the UOL for about £5k all in. I also think it would be possible to do that while also working a dull time 37h/WK job if someone was dedicated enough certainly possible working part time. If said person States with their parents and earnt just £7k a year at the end if the three years they would have £21k minus the £5k cost so starting out with £16k rather than the -£40k that seems to be mandatory but it clearly isn't

Sorry, but your response is evident of someone that hasn't had to deal with any competition for jobs at the level that 80's/90's kids have had to cope with. I don't mean any disrespect by that, just that the skills required for most jobs has moved on significantly.

Firstly, you can say it's not a direct cost but I definitely feel the hit of it being taken out of my pay each month so it isn't insignificant like you are trying to make out. Feel free to reimburse me every month if it is.

Secondly, yes information is free (not sure why that is relevant, no one will hire you because you read something on the internet, you need a certificate to back it up) and yes, only 50% do go to uni (because many can't afford it anymore). The ones that don't go are far more likely to earn less (plenty of stats to back that up). So the ones that do have to incur these costs.

In relation to these costs, staying at home isn't an option for most because they don't live near a Russell group university. If you want a good job, you more than likely need to go to one of these as it improves your chances, which you'll need because every good grad job you go for will have about 50 other applicants. Yes you could do distance learning but you won't get the same quality as being in a lecture or study group (thus them being so much cheaper).