A new study by The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that people in their early 30s are half as wealthy as those now in their 40s were at the same age.
The BBC reported today:
Those born in the early 1980s have an average wealth of £27,000 each, against the £53,000 those born in the 1970s had by the same age, said the IFS….
They will also find it harder to amass wealth in the future….
…The think tank found that people born in the early 1980s were the first post-war group not to have higher incomes in early adulthood than those born in the preceding decade.
This is the grim reality of a generation that has grown up under the doctrines of the neoliberal political consensus.
Ever since the reign of Margaret Thatcher we have seen an increase in income inequality, and the lowering of living standards for the majority. And now we have an entire generation who are poorer than any other since World War II.
Millennials have felt the full brunt of the financial collapse of 2008, with many of us being thrown into a turbulent “race to the bottom” employment landscape. And despite political rhetoric we know the economy has not recovered, and is in fact getting worse.
A generation of millennials face a unique set of problems that have been caused by a scarcity of affordable housing, employment that is reliant on a low skilled service economy, zero hours contracts, stagnant wages, student loan debt, a lack of social mobility, the list goes on..
Millennials have often been labelled by the mainstream media, as ‘whiny’ or ‘self entitled’ – a generation who just don’t work hard enough, and need to stop complaining.
Yet here we have the reality laid out bare, and we can see something is going terribly wrong. Unless this situation is dealt with, and sensible steps are taken then this downward trend will continue. We may well be facing a situation where every generation has it worse than the previous one.
The dire situation faced by millennials has led to the re-emergence of the progressive left, in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn, and with Bernie Sanders in the US.
The support for both is hugely driven by the young, who are becomingly increasingly desperate to improve their lives.
The simple fact is unless we take action, and support politicians like Corbyn who offer a real alternative to the nightmare we live in, then things will continue to get worse and worse.
Millennials clearly have a raw deal having inherited a system which simply doesn’t work for us. And whether we like it or not, it is our generation’s duty to sort this mess out.
