More evidence of increasing wealth gap

Thrugelmir

ruperts wrote: »

My point was in relation to the poster I quoted talking about jobs 'down the mines' and such like;

Replace mines and factories with call and processing centres.

cells

ruperts wrote: »

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?

A generation isn't 10 years a generation as the word implies is one generation to the next and humans don't typically have children when they are ten years old so ten years is certainly not a generation. I would take a generation to mean 30 years.

So for people arguing the current crop of 30 years olds have it hard they need to compare them to the 30 year olds of 1985 and on every metric the current crop of 30 year olds is far better off.

I don't share your view the internet was of no use to those born in the 80s. The internet was well established by 2000 which would put someone born in 1985 at 15 years old so it was a very good tool.


Also I simply don't accept that housing today is unaffordable. I make the argunet that in most the country housing is very cheap so cheap that the mortgage interest is well below the cost of the cheapest form of housing the social sector. How can people argue with a straight face that housing is expensive when it's cheaper to buy than it is to rent socially? Of course this does not apply to London but it does apply to 75% of the country.

Good jobs are a plenty. I know about a dozen kids in the late 20s to early 30s who are on £150k plus wages. And back to the topic of inheritances a lot of kids are getting hundreds of thousands some are even being gifted multiple hundred of thousands and these aren't from very rich backgrounds

ruperts

cells wrote: »

A generation isn't 10 years a generation as the word implies is one generation to the next and humans don't typically have children when they are ten years old so ten years is certainly not a generation. I would take a generation to mean 30 years.

So for people arguing the current crop of 30 years olds have it hard they need to compare them to the 30 year olds of 1985 and on every metric the current crop of 30 year olds is far better off.

I don't share your view the internet was of no use to those born in the 80s. The internet was well established by 2000 which would put someone born in 1985 at 15 years old so it was a very good tool.


Also I simply don't accept that housing today is unaffordable. I make the argunet that in most the country housing is very cheap so cheap that the mortgage interest is well below the cost of the cheapest form of housing the social sector. How can people argue with a straight face that housing is expensive when it's cheaper to buy than it is to rent socially? Of course this does not apply to London but it does apply to 75% of the country.

Good jobs are a plenty. I know about a dozen kids in the late 20s to early 30s who are on £150k plus wages. And back to the topic of inheritances a lot of kids are getting hundreds of thousands some are even being gifted multiple hundred of thousands and these aren't from very rich backgrounds

You can define a generation however you like but the article was talking about the difference between people born in the 1970's and 1980's.


As someone born in the 1980's who was at school in 2000 I don't agree with your view on the internet. Even now in 2016 online-only course still don't hold nearly the weight of a traditional qualification. You make it sound like nobody had any access to information before the internet. Before the internet people could just as easily go to libraries, it all amounts to the same thing.


Interest being low on mortgages doesn't make housing cheap, not when house prices as a percentage of earnings are about twice as expensive as the historical average; not when the average house price is £200k and rising by 7-10% per year and nobody will give you a mortgage unless you've got a 10% deposit. How easy do you think it is even for well educated young people to save for a £20k deposit when they're typically only earning £24k out of uni and are saddled with debt while being unable to earn any interest on what savings they do have? Not to mention the many young people who through no fault of their own are earning less than the average for their age group. You can even take someone in their late 20's, earning an above average wage of say £30k and even if they've somehow managed to save the deposit no bank will give them more than a £130k mortgage. What can you buy with that? Certainly not a nice big detached house with a big garden like you could in the past. The best you can hope for is a flat and then being stung for £200 per month on top for service charges by charlatan management companies whose politician silent partners use their powers to keep the scam going. Sounds like a conspiracy theory? Look it up. If you're lucky enough to live in a particularly bad area then your above average salary might afford you a 19th century terraced house that only needs £30k of renovation work done to make it habitable. Failing that renting is your only option.


But hold on what about these "help to buy" schemes, they're so generous aren't they? Well no, not really. The first one only allowed you to have a chance at getting a 5% mortgage on a new build house. Great, so if that goes well I'll immediately be in negative equity on my shoebox, and hold on a minute, they cost £180k+ in the first place so unless I earn £50k I'm not going to get that mortgage anyway. What about the other one, a 25% bonus on £200 per month. That's amazing, thanks. House prices are going up £10k per year and I can get £50 back on my savings? Ill be there in no time! Maybe if I wasn't paying £150 per month on my student loan in the first place I wouldn't need your poxy bonus that I can't even put towards a deposit anyway.


I know it's easy for people in comfortable situations who have already gone through the trouble of saving a few month's salary for their 1970's deposit to disregard the concerns of the young regarding housing. I'm sure we're all, including myself, guilty of not fully understanding a situation before commenting on it from time to time. But if you think housing is "very cheap" for young people today then you are on another planet, my friend. Or at least in a another country because in this one nothing could be further from the truth.

JamesN

cells wrote: »

A generation isn't 10 years a generation as the word implies is one generation to the next and humans don't typically have children when they are ten years old so ten years is certainly not a generation. I would take a generation to mean 30 years.

So for people arguing the current crop of 30 years olds have it hard they need to compare them to the 30 year olds of 1985 and on every metric the current crop of 30 year olds is far better off.

I don't share your view the internet was of no use to those born in the 80s. The internet was well established by 2000 which would put someone born in 1985 at 15 years old so it was a very good tool.


Also I simply don't accept that housing today is unaffordable. I make the argunet that in most the country housing is very cheap so cheap that the mortgage interest is well below the cost of the cheapest form of housing the social sector. How can people argue with a straight face that housing is expensive when it's cheaper to buy than it is to rent socially? Of course this does not apply to London but it does apply to 75% of the country.

Good jobs are a plenty. I know about a dozen kids in the late 20s to early 30s who are on £150k plus wages. And back to the topic of inheritances a lot of kids are getting hundreds of thousands some are even being gifted multiple hundred of thousands and these aren't from very rich backgrounds

This comment proves you are either a troll or don't live in the real world.

I know no one in that bracket who earns that much and I know a lot of successful people (Goldman Sachs employees being an example).

A simple comparison of % of income spent on houses would highlight it certainly is less affordable. When you don't have the capital you can't get a mortgage and so renting is the only option. You then can't save well for a deposit because it is so much more expensive to rent. The deposit element is something you should compare to the report this thread is debating. People at the same age have less wealth.

In short, unless you have a trust fund, you'll be worse off.

CLAPTON

JamesN wrote: »

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).

80% of the the english live within 40 miles of a russell group Uni

lisyloo

I was born late 60's, had a free uni education and even a partial maintenance grant. I didn't have any debts at uni and there was a choice of good jobs.

I don't think my life was blighted by the lack of Internet banking or Facebook.

I would definitely not swap places and I consider myself lucky because travel was widely available when I was an adult.

I had private transport at 16.

CLAPTON

lisyloo wrote: »

I was born late 60's, had a free uni education and even a partial maintenance grant. I didn't have any debts at uni and there was a choice of good jobs.

I don't think my life was blighted by the lack of Internet banking or Facebook.

I would definitely not swap places and I consider myself lucky because travel was widely available when I was an adult.

I had private transport at 16.

that seems to prove that you are about 45
but says nothing about economics, society, or the price of bicycles

cells

ruperts wrote: »

As someone born in the 1980's who was at school in 2000 I don't agree with your view on the internet. Even now in 2016 online-only course still don't hold nearly the weight of a traditional qualification. You make it sound like nobody had any access to information before the internet. Before the internet people could just as easily go to libraries, it all amounts to the same thing.

The internet and libraries are not comparable at all

Interest being low on mortgages doesn't make housing cheap,

it sure doesnt hurt

not when house prices as a percentage of earnings are about twice as expensive as the historical average;

the cost of buying a house is cheaper than the cost of renting from the council for a lot of locations in the UK in fact for most locations. So is buying a house affordable when its more affordable than the social stock? yes it is

not when the average house price is £200k and rising by 7-10% per year and nobody will give you a mortgage unless you've got a 10% deposit.

these are the average terrace prices for the UK

Northern Ireland = £86k
North East = £105k
Wales = £112k
North West = £114k
Scotland = £120k
Yorkshire&Humber = £121k
E-Midlands = £131k
W-Midlands = £139k
South West = £198k

As you can see 8 of the above regions are substantially less than your average £200k assertion


East England = £231k
SE = £262k
London = £503k

two regions are more than your £200k assertion but FTBs should not be aiming for the average terrace if the lowest rung buyers the FTBs were buying the average terraces who is going to live in the less than average terraces that make up half the stock or the flats? Its only London which stands out and there are good reasons for that too.

How easy do you think it is even for well educated young people to save for a £20k deposit when they're typically only earning £24k out of uni and are saddled with debt while being unable to earn any interest on what savings they do have?/QUOTE]

Well educated young people will be earning more than that. The average for a man age 22-29 age group is £23,070 according to the ons but that includes the more than half the population that did not go to university so those that did should be higher and those that are 'well educated' should be even higher than those that are just 'educated'

More importantly a factor I try to point out is inheritances, lots and lots (millions) of people get some and often quite a lot in inheritances. To ignore this £200 billion a year or pretend it only goes to a handful leads to completely wrong assumptions about the economy and peoples lives.

Not to mention the many young people who through no fault of their own are earning less than the average for their age group. You can even take someone in their late 20's, earning an above average wage of say £30k and even if they've somehow managed to save the deposit no bank will give them more than a £130k mortgage. What can you buy with that?

They need to partner up
Else every couple would have two homes and the country would need to roughly double the housing stock to allow that to happen

Certainly not a nice big detached house with a big garden like you could in the past.

This is nonsense, most people back then couldn't afford a nice big detached house with a big garden, you know how I know this? because most homes were not nice big detached homes this is so obvious....

The best you can hope for is a flat and then being stung for £200 per month on top for service charges by charlatan management companies whose politician silent partners use their powers to keep the scam going. Sounds like a conspiracy theory? Look it up.

yes it does sound like a conspiracy theory

If you're lucky enough to live in a particularly bad area then your above average salary might afford you a 19th century terraced house that only needs £30k of renovation work done to make it habitable. Failing that renting is your only option.

renting is more expensive than buying so if you can afford to rent you can more easily afford to buy

Maybe if I wasn't paying £150 per month on my student loan in the first place I wouldn't need your poxy bonus that I can't even put towards a deposit anyway.

no one forced you to go to university and someone needs to pay for it so why should the more than half of your friends who did not go pay for you?

I know it's easy for people in comfortable situations who have already gone through the trouble of saving a few month's salary for their 1970's deposit to disregard the concerns of the young regarding housing. I'm sure we're all, including myself, guilty of not fully understanding a situation before commenting on it from time to time. But if you think housing is "very cheap" for young people today then you are on another planet, my friend. Or at least in a another country because in this one nothing could be further from the truth.

your primary fault is trying to buy and look at it as a single person. Assuming you dont think the definition of hardship is sharing a house with one more person then you task is to find a partner and look at life with two peoples efforts.

One of my friends got married last year. Both on min wage or close to it yet they managed to buy with no help at all an ok 3 bed terrace in the west midlands for £90k. Now if you look at the data I posted above the west midlands average terrace is £139k but that means half the towns in the west midlands cost less and they are in a town which does indeed cost less than the regional average.

That is not to say everyone should go live in the cheper towns in the cheaper regions. If you take your own example of someone on £30k, double it to £60k for a couple and multiply by 5 to get the deposit+mortgage and you are on a budget of £300k which is more than enough to buy in all but London the average terrace.

Add into the mix a piece of the £200 billion a year if gits and inheritances and life is not so bad. Even those who dont think they will get a piece of that wealth often do via marrages, deaths, divorces and sometimes multiple of the above.

cells

JamesN wrote: »

I know no one in that bracket

so they dont exist?

A simple comparison of % of income spent on houses would highlight it certainly is less affordable.

If houses are less affordable than say 30-60 years ago, why were there less owners then?

When you don't have the capital you can't get a mortgage

Bring back 100% mortgages

You then can't save well for a deposit because it is so much more expensive to rent.

Even in inner London you can find decent shared housing all in for £700pm and where the full time average wage must be in excess of £35k that leaves quite a lot of room to save if you want. in the real world most people also have support of some kind from relatives and find partners to share costs and savings with

so yes its difficult if you are a single person on a low wage living in a high cos part of the country and with no inheritances or help but that is not the average person

cells

ruperts wrote: »

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?

they wont go anywhere because most of them are in line for a share of the ANNUAL £200 billion a year that is gifted and inherited.

Also bear in mind only really one or two generation needs to buy a house and pay it off, all subsequent generations effectively get it for free.