Jobs· Labour market· Pay· Intergenerational Centre It’s getting better all the time? 5 July 2019 by Stephen Clarke In 1957 the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told the country that it had “never had it so good”. Since then more than six decades have elapsed, and each successive generation has debated whether this applies to them. Such debates continue to rage. Some commentators have argued that today’s young people are more fortunate than previous … Continued READ MORE
Intergenerational Centre War and peace – David Willetts reviews two of the latest books on Intergenerational equity for the Financial Times 3 July 2019 by David Willetts Class used to predict how people would vote in Britain and elsewhere — in 1974 if you were a member of the working class you were three times more likely to vote Labour than Conservative. Now the distribution of votes by class in the UK is almost even between Labour and Conservative: the new divide … Continued READ MORE
Prices & consumption· Intergenerational Centre Life as a millennial is far less extravagant than you might think 20 June 2019 by Laura Gardiner When economists and policy makers talk about living standards they think in terms of real (equivalised) household disposable incomes (before or after housing costs). This is a good approach to take, but it’s not how most people think. A more common way is to think about how much money you have to spend on goods … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Britain has become a less mobile nation – why? 6 June 2019 by Torsten Bell Donald Trump tells us there are no protesters. He says it so often, he probably believes it. Which is worrying, but also fairly normal. There are stories we hear so often that we simply assume they are true. Here’s one. Our communities are changing ever faster as more and more people move around for work, … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Housing· Intergenerational Centre Young people are no longer footloose and fancy free – and rent rises are to blame 6 June 2019 by Lindsay Judge Millennials, eh? They never stand still. Always on the move, with their ‘portfolio careers’, side hustles in the gig economy, and no loyalty to the companies they work for. With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder they struggle to find decent work and pay. There’s only one problem with this common trope though. It’s … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay· Intergenerational Centre Wrong time, wrong place – leaving education in the middle of a downturn 13 May 2019 by David Willetts Modern economies are supposed to deliver improving living standards – incrementally year-on-year, with big gains decade-on-decade. That is why it is so shocking that a 30-year-old today earns no more than a 30-year-old a decade ago, according to previous research by the Resolution Foundation’s Intergenerational Commission. This is an earnings freeze on a scale unprecedented … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Pay· Intergenerational Centre Coming of age during a downturn can cause scarring – and it takes up to a decade to heal 13 May 2019 by Stephen Clarke Recessions are bad for people’s standard of living. And they’re particularly bad for young people. That’s the painful lesson we learnt after the 1980s recession where, for most of that decade, at least one in seven people under 30 were unemployed. We know a lot about the unemployment scarring of the 1980s – from the … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets· Intergenerational Centre More ambition, less risk – building on the success of auto-enrolment 4 April 2019 by David Willetts and Laura Gardiner We often find it harder to celebrate policy successes than decry policy failures. So you might have missed a policy success which we are marking this week. We are about to have completed the successful initial rolling-out of automatic enrolment into occupational pension saving. Millions of employees will enjoy higher living standards in retirement as … Continued READ MORE
Demographics· Intergenerational Centre· Political parties and elections My Generation, Baby: The Politics of Age in Brexit Britain 29 March 2019 by Laura Gardiner and Torsten Bell Generational politics is nothing new, but the extent of the profound generational cleavage that has emerged in British electoral politics is novel. The Brexit vote and the 2017 general election put generational politics centre‐stage, eclipsing in some ways the traditionally dominant role of class. Our two main parties now rely on age‐based coalitions of support—on … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Housing· Intergenerational Centre The Bank of Mum and Dad pays out at least three times in life 4 December 2018 by Torsten Bell Times change, Britain changes, and it doesn’t stop changing just because we’re all naturally obsessed by Brexit. Our need to understand and respond to those changes is as big as ever – and nowhere is that more true than in the growing importance in our society of wealth, which has risen from three times our … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Quality and security· Housing· Wellbeing· Time use· Intergenerational Centre All aboard the Millennial Express – longer commutes for less pay 8 November 2018 by Nye Cominetti The ONS serve to uplift and depress analysts like me in equal measure. And today they served up the latter, with new figures showing that the number of people commuting for more than an hour to get into work has increased by almost a third (31 per cent) since 2011. Longer commutes are good news … Continued READ MORE
Public spending· Tax· Intergenerational Centre· Political parties and elections Britain is set to replace the era of austerity with a new era of tax rises 7 October 2018 by David Willetts The main message that has united both main party conferences over the last fortnight is that the era of austerity is over. For Labour that means more spending on new things – from universal childcare to a mass programme of nationalisation. And for many Conservatives it means a return to what they love doing best … Continued READ MORE
Demographics· Intergenerational Centre· Political parties and elections Demography is the new class war 21 September 2018 by Torsten Bell The real question about this year’s Labour Party conference is what on earth everyone will talk about for four days. The supposed Brexit barney will be a damp squib and leadership rows have disappeared. So here’s a suggestion to fill the awkward silences: it’s time Labour talked about the arrival of generational divides in our … Continued READ MORE
Labour market· Intergenerational Centre Welcome to adulthood, millennial 13 September 2018 by Laura Gardiner 2018 is the year in which the babies of the millennium reach adulthood. Back in January, this was mainly marked by existential online angst about how those born when Britney Spears’s ‘Oops!… I Did It Again’ was in the charts are reaching legal drinking age. Today’s 18 in 2018 publication from the Office for National … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Intergenerational Centre We need to lift the burden of risk that we are loading onto young people 8 May 2018 by Laura Gardiner A key question for any politician is to ask is what it feels like to grow up in Britain today. The mood and outlook of young adults is a bellwether for the new frontiers of culture, the growth prospects of the economy and the tenor of politics. So, what is the mood among young adults … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Social mobility· Intergenerational Centre Widening inequalities between generations are impeding social mobility 8 May 2018 by Fahmida Rahman Intergenerational progress – the principle that each generation will do better than the one before – has come to a halt. Millennials in their late 20s are earning less than generation X did 15 years earlier, own half as many homes as the baby boomers, and shoulder greater levels of risk than previous generations. It’s … Continued READ MORE
Intergenerational Centre We need to start the huge task of renewing Britain’s contract between generations 8 May 2018 by Torsten Bell Politics today is one of big questions, but few answers. On Brexit that is true in bucket loads. For the Conservatives that is because they simply do not agree with each other. For Labour it is because all the incentives are to leave this as the Tories problem – ambiguity is the order of the … Continued READ MORE
Living standards· Intergenerational Centre The millennial minefield: Young adults’ views on generational justice in the 21st century 4 May 2018 by Fahmida Rahman In March 2018 the Intergenerational Commission, in partnership with My Life My Say, convened a group of 30 young people to discuss issues related to intergenerational fairness. The Commission wanted to understand where their greatest concerns lay, and to test some of its policy ideas against the scrutiny of today’s young generation as part of … Continued READ MORE
Wealth & assets· Tax· Intergenerational Centre There’s something off-key about our approach to inheritance tax 2 May 2018 by Matthew Whittaker It takes something to be crowned Britain’s most hated tax – a bit like being the UK’s worst ever Eurovision entry – but that is the unwanted title held by inheritance tax. It doesn’t help that it’s a tax that’s unavoidably associated with the death of loved ones. And complexity is undoubtedly a problem too. … Continued READ MORE
Public spending· Housing· Intergenerational Centre The future fiscal cost of ‘Generation Rent’ 17 April 2018 by Stephen Clarke The future fiscal cost of ‘Generation Rent’ For most people the lion’s share of their income is spent housing and so forking out on accommodation when no longer earning would seem like a tall order for many. The vast majority of retired people own their own home and so have relatively low housing costs, however … Continued READ MORE
Pensions & savings· Wealth & assets· Welfare· Intergenerational Centre Now’s not the time for auto-pilot 6 April 2018 by Matthew Whittaker and Stephen Clarke Straightforward policy successes are a rare achievement in government and need celebrating when they arrive, lest we forget that policy matters. The recent sizeable gains the UK has made on private pension saving as a result of the introduction of auto-enrolment are therefore a clear cause for cheer. But challenges remain, starting with the increase … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Intergenerational Centre Council tax is a farce – it’s time for a real property tax 21 March 2018 by Laura Gardiner It’s an open secret that council tax is a dog’s dinner. It was conjured up in the early 1990s as a half-way house between the hated ‘poll tax’ and the old domestic rates system, meaning those in top-band properties have much lower tax rates than those in cheaper homes. In England and Scotland, it is … Continued READ MORE
Housing· Tax· Intergenerational Centre It’s time to properly abolish the ‘poll tax’ 20 March 2018 by Adam Corlett What is Britain’s most badly designed tax? A leading contender has to be council tax. It’s a tax based on 27 year old house valuations, but this isn’t even the biggest problem. Council tax would bear little relation to property values even if it were revalued. Typical council tax bills for the most expensive homes … Continued READ MORE
Social mobility· Intergenerational Centre Today’s problems of intergenerational inequality risk becoming tomorrow’s big social mobility divide 12 March 2018 by Fahmida Rahman Launching a review of higher education recently, the Prime Minister spoke of her wish to make the UK a country ‘where your background does not define your future’. Naturally, education is almost always pitched as the key to upward social mobility – but to what extent does it really level the playing field? It is … Continued READ MORE
Social care· Wealth & assets· Welfare· Intergenerational Centre Baby boomers are going to have to pay more tax on their wealth to fund health and social care 5 March 2018 by David Willetts In the past decade a new issue has entered British politics – fairness between the generations. It straddles the conventional political divide. The Prime Minister has spoken of “a growing divide between a more prosperous older generation and a struggling younger generation”. And the leader of the Labour Party has argued that future generations should … Continued READ MORE
