2021, it seems, will end the same way as it started, with COVID-19 putting the nation on hold, but it is the young who have suffered the most as intergenerational unfairness deepens, writes Liz Emerson, IF Co-founder, in this end-of-year review. COVID-19 From Delta to Omicron, COVID-19 has delivered a rollercoaster of a year as… Read more »
Category: Housing
The social care cap and the intergenerational contract
On 7 September 2021, the government announced reforms to the social care system in order to provide more support to people with fewer financial resources. A recent announcement on 17 November 2021 casts doubt on whether these reforms will be worth the costs borne by younger generations. John Hobby, IF researcher, investigates whether this is… Read more »
High rents leave families with unaffordable housing costs
A new report from Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) finds that one million families are paying rents that they cannot afford. Liz Emerson, IF Co-founder, takes a look at the research. 1 million families paying rent they cannot afford According to the JRF research, one million households are paying rents they cannot afford. These are private… Read more »
National Insurance: young people and lower earners hit the hardest
Yesterday, MPs voted to approve raising employees’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) by 1.25 percentage points, breaking a key manifesto promise not to raise taxes. While the government marketed the rise as “progressive”, in reality it is an intergenerationally unfair tax reform which will affect younger generations the most. Lizzie Simpson, IF Researcher, explains. A regressive… Read more »
National insurance, intergenerational fairness and paying for social care
Robert Ashton looks at how National Insurance could be changed for the better, raising more money to pay for social care without penalising younger generations, many of whom are already paying a greater part of their incomes than previous generations on high rents and student loan repayments. How can we make National Insurance work better… Read more »
Freedom and injustice in the time of coronavirus
Last week, the majority of COVID-19 restrictions in England were removed, marking the biggest return to “normality” that we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic. However, this does not mean the end of restrictions for everybody, as IF Researcher, Lizzie Simpson, discusses how the new settlement affects younger people differently, and how this… Read more »
It’s time for post-COVID payback for Australia’s young people
Australia has been called a “lucky country” thanks to very low COVID-19 deaths, but that has come at an economic cost to younger Australians who have not fared well. Think Forward, a newly established lobby group for young Australians who want politicians to prioritise and take action on issues of intergenerational fairness, argues that young… Read more »
What should a post-pandemic economic recovery look like for younger generations?
In this contribution to IF’s Worldwide Blog Week, Chris Wongsosaputro, Co-Chair of the Young Fabians Economy & Finance Network, calls on the government response to COVID-19 to focus on improving younger generations’ skill sets Young people hit hardest In economic terms, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted young people more than other generations. Figures from the… Read more »
Intergenerational fairness: an economic approach
Matthew Oulton, Secretary of the UK’s Young Fabians Economy and Finance Network, economics student and young Labour activist from the Wirral, joins IF’s Worldwide Blog Week to discuss, from a left perspective, how to achieve intergenerational fairness post COVID-19 After a year of locking up the young largely to save the old, it’s hard to… Read more »
The need to create a new property tax deal that benefits younger generations
In this contribution to IF’s Worldwide Blog Week, Andrew Dixon, Founder of Fairer Share, a UK-based property taxation campaign group, argues that now, more than ever, we need a new property tax deal that benefits younger generations Housing is an essential tool for achieving intergenerational fairness. However, it is clear that young people hoping to… Read more »