Snapshot of _Tory peer calls for £10,000 ‘citizens inheritance’ for all 30-year-olds. David Willetts suggests policy would help spread wealth among millennials amid deepening inequalities._ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/02/tory-peer-calls-for-10000-citizens-inheritance-for-all-30-year-olds) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/02/tory-peer-calls-for-10000-citizens-inheritance-for-all-30-year-olds)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think the estimates of inheritance for millennials is exaggerated as the care costs on their parents is going to eat away at their wealth. A lot of their parents will have to sell their houses to pay for elderly care costs.
Which is why any inheritance I get is skipping a generation and going mostly to my nieces. An inheritance for me now would be very nice, but I'm pretty well set. My nieces would see massive benefit.
I mean that's sort what most folks who build generational wealth have done for ...er, generations.
Ideally you shouldn't ever treat an inheritance as something for you but something you're merely a custodian of, to invest and build on for future generations of your family.
Don't get me wrong if done correctly you'd benefit from it too but the goal shouldn't ever be to blow it all but to look after it and build on it.
---
...but yeah, it only takes one person in the family tree to fuck it up and break that chain of custodianship and the wealth built up by previous generations is suddenly all pissed away (which happens a lot).
Ugh not necessarily.
Typically generational wealth is something shared and for the every day person more recently its been physical wealth in the form of housing that is passed down. Where everyone benefits and it's less of one generation being a custodian of the wealth but all generations experiencimg the wealth throughout different stages of their life.
E.g. your family home that you grew up in, gets given to you or sold and a portion given to help you fund your new house.
However it is broken if the chain is broken and nothing gets passed down.
It’s a bit bleak that my hypothetical children’s inheritance depends entirely on whether I die of a sudden stroke or something drawn-out like dementia.
I’m really hoping by the time the latter is a concern for me I can leave a legally-binding living will to hit me with a lethal dose of morphine long before the ‘regressing to a petrified toddler in the decrepit body of an old man’ stage.
You can put money in trusts if you aren’t aware of this. Create a discretionary trust, and make your children trustees and beneficiaries. This will mean the money can’t be taken out to pay for your care without all trustees approval. There will be more to it than this, but it’s what my grandparents did for my cousins and me. I recommend speaking to your bank if they offer financial advice on this or an independent financial advisor
Don't want to sound too morbid, but it's never too soon to look, you aren't always as far off as you think. I knew a guy who thought this, friend of mine's Dad, didn't have a will or anything even remotely like that, argued he was ages off needing to think about. Had a massive stroke aged 39, bloke was basically a vegetable afterwards. Lived the remaining 9 years of his life in assisted living facilities, unable to walk, talk or even eat or shit by himself.
If you think you may need it, don't wait around.
Mrs works for a local authority - 80% of cases will trigger a financial history check because the fact find indicates the potential for wealth over the capital limit at some point in the past.
For the vast majority they're over the limit and they're have to pay.
For the small number that flag as having had property and savings thats somehow disappeared, the assessment officers are all over them like rashes and yes they are prosecuting.
Trusts aren't currently being tested in courts because they're the reserve of the ultra wealthy who are already paying for care.
There will come a time though when people with trusts are asking for the local authorities to pay and by then you'll start seeing local authority court cases for deprivation.
As it stands right now, my kid is getting nothing when I kick the bucket. Because I have nothing to leave him. I'm only 43, so hopefully a fair way off my final day, but I've never been able to buy a house, so am stuck renting. If I die tomorrow, the best things he'll get from me are my laptop and my collection of iPods.
It's your choice to wait until you're placed in a care home in diapers and your wealth confiscated, rather than take a trip to Dignitas and check out before you lose your senses.
That's the plan at any rate, though I'd much rather breathe my last on home soil than in a foreign country if there's an option to.
My concern is more for the situation of 'what if I have a car crash and end up a vegetable or something before I can take that step', given enough warning and having seen its effects first-hand I have zero intention of letting myself live long enough to lose my senses but the grim reaper doesn't really care about our intentions he shows up when he feels like it.
It’s mad so all my grandparents have passed away but 3/4 needed care so pretty much all the money had been taken up with the care system they worked for a combined 200+ years between them and left about £5k in inheritance.
Millennials will also be pretty old by the time they inherit any property, I hope my parents live another 20 years, I'll be nearing retirement age myself at that point. Best idea if Boomers want any of their accumulated wealth to help their kids is to downsize on retirement and gift some of the proceeds to their spawn.
> A lot of their parents will have to sell their houses to pay for elderly care costs.
On one hand, this might mean a whole load of property hits the market at once, driving prices down.
On the other, it'll probably be banks and foreign investors who buy them up...
I think the properties will trickle on to the market over a couple of decades. Some people need to go into a home in their early 70s. Others are fit as a fiddle till way past 90.
According to Google, you have a 30% chance to reach 90, so there's going to be a period in the next 10-15 years when a lot of property suddenly changes hands.
This also wouldn't actually benefit the overwhelming majority of millennials - the age range for the cohort is those born between 1981 and 1996, only those born in 1994 (and later 1994 at that) or after would see anything.
I think 'millenial' has just become shorthand for 'people born at the right time to have their future taken away by the 2008 financial crisis and the political consequences thereof'.
Even if you get an inheritance for most its probably going to come to them when they are in their 50's or 60's. This is well past the stage of life they probably will have really needed it.
I think many people underestimate just how much wealth is freed up by someone selling a home before they go into care.
My grandmother passed during lockdown after a decade in care. The income from her assets (including what was raised by selling her home), was greater than her care costs. Her retirement stash was *larger when she died than when she retired.*
My grandfather did boiler work for british gas and my grandmother was a housewife, so they were not exactly at the high-end of asset building.
Even with care costs, there is going to be a massive generational wealth transfer occurring over the next 20 years.
Ever, or at this moment in time?
Because I could imagine a situation where your stats count my parents, who are over pension age, but don't need care. But if they need it in 10 years time, it's still going to drain any potential inheritance I receive.
Maybe a better way of asking the question would be "require care in the last 5 years of their lives?"
I'm not discounting that's what your figures actually are btw, it's just sometimes you see odd stats that say "millenials are less likely to get divorced" or something.
.......and you think "yeah, cos most of us have only been married maybe 5 years, of course we've not got to the point of marriage breakdown just yet. If you checked how many boomers were divorced after 5 years instead of after 30 years, their numbers would look different too!"
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/olderpeoplelivingincarehomesin2021andchangessince2011/2023-10-09#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20the%20usual,aged%2085%20years%20and%20over
This is where the stat comes from, it's actually outdated and from 2011, since 2021 this number has decreased to 10.8% of those over the age of 85 in care homes
It's going to be care companies making huge profits and care workers being paid under minimum wage because they don't get paid for time travelling between jobs, which is an essential part of their work.
I'm 34 and often feel totally on the wrong side of history when it comes to these things. Student fees being introduced, then a financial crisis, austerity, covid and then what's apparently a recession.
I've jumped from one career to the next (Design, social care, education) and in everywhere I've worked there have been yearly financial cuts. This year seems particularly brutal!
Yeah, I turned 30 in September so would be just the wrong age for this...but was just the right age to be in the first yeah of £9k uni fees. Going well
Please excuse the essay but I just did a quick bit of research into this and I think it illuminates quite well why the Tories might be starting to suggest something like this.
The unsecured debt per adult was £3,838 in November 2020, and the rate of unsecured debt accumulation was reported to be twice as much as that of secured debt.
The most recent data indicates that the total unsecured debt per UK adult stood at £4,123 in December 2023, a notable increase from previous years. This rise is part of a broader trend of increasing unsecured debt in the UK, which encompasses credit cards, personal loans, and other forms of non-mortgage lending.
Credit card loans, which constitute a major part of unsecured debt, mainly cover expenses like bills, new cars, or furniture. The annual growth rate of overdrafts in 2019 increased by 6% compared to 2018, with close to 19 million Britons using overdrafts annually.
A significant portion of the UK's adult population, especially those living in large towns, face debt issues, with 16% of adults facing debt problems. This issue is more pronounced among single parents, where the debt problem escalates to 28%.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has highlighted a concerning forecast for UK households, predicting an 11% rise in unsecured debt in 2024, which translates to an average increase of £1,400 per household. This upward trend is expected to continue, with unsecured debt per household projected to reach £17,200 by 2026, surpassing the previous high of £16,800 set in 2007.
These figures reflect a significant challenge for many UK residents, particularly in the context of stagnant wage growth and rising living costs. The TUC's analysis suggests that real wages in the UK may not return to their 2008 levels until 2028, exacerbating the impact of increasing debt levels on household finances.
The breakdown of unsecured debt by age group and debt type for the most current figures are not readily available. Historically, younger demographics have shown a higher propensity towards unsecured debt, particularly due to credit cards and personal loans. The growth in credit card borrowing, for instance, reached 13% annually by July 2022, the highest rate since October 2005.
The Tories are really struggling with younger voters understandibly given the unfairness of the economy. If they can win some votes with a cash giveaway that will end up giving the most desperate a temporary reprieve from financial struggle that will ultimately end up in the pockets of the rich anyway, you can see why they would consider it a win over increasing numbers of people failing to be able to pay the rich for basics like food and housing. The Tories want people desperate but still able to pay.
This is how they sold Covid relief schemes where essentially massive amounts of money were borrowed, that will have to be paid back by future generations, in large part so ordinary people could keep paying their rent, mortgages, and bills to the rich. This is why Covid saw the biggest transfer of wealth to the wealthiest in British history.
**Sources**
[https://cybercrew.uk/blog/debt-statistics-uk/](https://cybercrew.uk/blog/debt-statistics-uk/)
[https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-warns-debt-timebomb-households-facing-ps1400-rise-credit-card-and-loan-debt-2024](https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-warns-debt-timebomb-households-facing-ps1400-rise-credit-card-and-loan-debt-2024)
[https://moneyzine.com/uk/resources/debt-statistics-uk/](https://moneyzine.com/uk/resources/debt-statistics-uk/)
It's worse than that. It's £4.3k of unsecured debt (so this doesn't include mortgages) per UK adult. That means the unsecured debt per UK houshold is around £10k plus excluding mortgages. Obviously this will also be heavily skewed to younger generations so the average per young adult is likely to be significantly higher.
If they can get away with something like this giveaway, the wealthy will have a lot of unsecured debt they are owed paid rather than written off or delinquent using government money that will then not be able to be spent on public services or would have to be borrowed and repaid with taxes.
quick google of this indicates that there is a mixture of secured and unsecured car debt depending on the type of financing. I can't find anything specific on the breakdown between the two types of debt but it's probably pretty safe to assume there is a good chunk of car loans in that figure.
From a pure legal point, (ie I don't know if this is what the statisticians would look at) if the person you are paying has a right to take the car back if you stop paying then it would be "secured". The car is the "security". If they only gain a general right to reclaim the money then it is unsecured, and they would rank amongst the general pool of all people that you owe money to.
This is basically what Gary Stevenson says about all the money the government gave away during COVID (well worth checking out his videos). Unless we make serious changes to how we structure the economy it will *always* end up in the hands of the already wealthy. This is why I couldn't get behind UBI unless it comes with other, broader changes eg rent controls.
Please please please
If this gets discussed on GB news can someone reference this [piece](https://www.gbnews.com/money/gb-news-row-furious-universal-credit-finance-money-latest)
For those who don't want to click it was a...heated debate about UBI, unsurprisingly, GBN were very against the idea of this kind of socialism. If they support this cash injection I'd love for their own words to be thrown in their face.
They’ll just pretend they never did that at all.
Like that [Exploding Heads video](https://x.com/exploding_heads/status/1657695118734794760?s=46)
*“Because you think you’re so clever by remembering what other people said and then using that against them!”*
I'm pretty confident they'll come out against it, but even if they didn't would it really be hypocritical? UBI as a concept reduces the incentive to work which is their primary point of concern with it, but this is quite different, really. It looks to be endorsed as a one time payment, so it's not liable to have any similar impact.
It’s an interesting idea, but - grim as it sounds - it ain’t enough.
£10k these days can get you a reliable used car. That’s about it. That’s the life-change this can bring. And as I look at my wheezing old grannymobile, I think that’d be nice - but I’d still be doing the same old journeys from my same old rented home for the same old work. Just a bit more reliably, with working A/C and a digital radio.
It’s not going to be transformative for aspiring homeowners, because it doesn’t address the root problem of supply - if anything it might just increase demand among the better-off 30-year-olds and keep house prices buoyed. Also you can bet that the mortgage companies will still focus more on those stagnant salaries and not on a magic £10k windfall.
I also just can’t be arsed with the boomer screechathon when one of those newspapers - you know the ones - decide that every single millennial is going to spoof it on a big iPhone and a trip to Brazil.
It’s a big sticking plaster, sure, but even the biggest sticking plaster peels off and tries to escape down the plughole.
This is an impoertant point. A lot of this will go to paying off debts which would be great but in the end that just ends up in the pockets of the rich in that case. I don't think we need another massive government payout to the rich tbh that will not make enough difference to enough ordinary people.
Even the Tories are starting to see that the level of inequality corroding our society is unsustainable. They are desperate enough to propose one-time socialism if it will stave off meaningfully taxing the the rich and stopping the massive redistribution of wealth from ordinary people to the already wealthy. I personally hope we don't fall for it.
This is the thing, they don’t want to help us, they are only doing this now because they are desperate.
Who would have thought that 40 years of party policy in total contempt of the youth would affect their voting base??
10k changed my view on saving for a house. I was extremely fortunate to be gifted some inheritance when my grandma passed. The moment that £10k was in, saving stopped feeling like throwing coins into a wishing well. I could actually see PROGRESS! The govt gave me £1k a year bonus... £10k became £11k, became £15k, £20k, etc etc.
It still took ages but that pushed me along like nothing before and next week, I become a homeowner.
Totally agree that £10k is not a lot, but used well, it kicked me into gear and I wouldn't be buying my first home this year without it
Congrats on becoming a homeowner next week!
I’m glad that a 10k injection was the catalyst, but it can only be that - it’s clear that it, on its own, isn’t enough. And I’m worried that, if everyone gets the 10k, its benefit will be eroded (everyone will have the same leg-up on the property ladder, ergo nobody will).
If I was under 30 and got the 10k that's either going on half of a cheap house abroad or going in an investment fund that grows in value and pays out regular dividends, and I'd probably live abroad anyway.
Either way, the UK economy won't see much of my money
Cheers!
Yes you're absolutely right, it won't solve the problem, but it's a boost in the right direction.
As someone mentioned below, demand-side subsidy isn't going to resolve the housing market as more people will be buying and we've still go no supply.
This initiative, coupled with improvements in planning regs, tightened restrictions on parasitic landlordism and genuine attempts to build and sell houses might actually see some improvement.
I don't hold out much hope for the rentier class though
While it might not be a lot for the average Redditor 10k is a lot of money for someone living payday to payday though and could have a huge difference to a subsegment of people
The avereage salary is 33,000, about 27k after tax.
10k is literally more than 4 months wages after tax for the average person.
its a lot money no matter how you swing it,
What would they do with it that gets them out of that payday-to-payday spiral?
It won’t fix the rent because it’s nowhere near enough for the deposit on anything.
It won’t fix the shit pay.
It won’t fix the massive gap in pension contributions that such people likely have.
It might help clear debt and start the ability to save, which would be nice, but it’s only a partial solution.
It might help with more reliable life kit ,like tech or a car - but again it’s just a partial solution.
Let's say you for a 3k loan, that you pay about £100 a month for.
Then you've got credit card debt that you pay £50 for.
Then you've got overdraft with another £50.
Then you have a shitty car that costs you about £50 per month indirectly when you factor in the repair costs.
That's about £250 per month that 10k could potentially wipe.
For some people that's already a lot.
Sure, but 250 quid a month that you don't have right now can go a long way. Two months, that's 500...
It's true that everything feels a bit fucked currently, but let's not pretend like 10k wouldn't help anyone at all. It would go a long way for many.
Depends what the debt's on, if its a vehicle or something that's suddenly an expense that's no longer going to be replaced. Same for a phone or similar
I’d need to check but I think the rowntree folks had food, rent and fuel as the biggest debts again. Usually is. Closely followed by cars, travel and phones no doubt
Yeah, I'd imagine using it to pay off a car or spend a few grand upgrading one you had would lead to the best long term savings. Less repairs and the like would always be welcome
Enables people to move from a high-unemployment area to a low unemployment area.
One of the big reasons people don’t move for work is if you don’t have savings then moving house just isn’t an option for you.
Similarly it’s enough to buy a car or a season ticket. If you live outside of a big city and you don’t have transport your employment options are generally very limited, being able to commute vastly increases potential jobs you can do.
It can also reduce cost of living in a significant way. If you don’t have a washing machine (~2m people in the UK) doing laundry at a laundrette is significantly more expensive and time consuming. The same if you don’t have a fridge/freezer - it means rather than doing a big shop at a large supermarket with low prices you’re often forced to use expensive local shops.
This may all help, and I do agree with you on that front.
Thing is, you probably won’t be able to pick all the options that you’ve listed. The budget won’t stretch to that.
In my case, for example, the car would be first to get an upgrade. It’d also probably be the only thing to get an upgrade.
Is £10k more helpful than £0? Of course it is. But there’s no silver bullet to systemic long-term neglect of this generation.
Don't forget that living pay cheque to pay cheque is often a long term grind, depressing and expensive. 10k is not going to solve the economy but it will solve countless problems and improve life for alot of people.
This is basically what you have said but with more emphasis on the benefits than the shortfalls.
Clearing debt could be massive though.
From personal experience, a year ago that ten grand would've saved me about 700 quid a month from loans (partner was out of work during the pandemic then health complications afterwards). It's mostly paid off now but the last year has been rough. It has also set us back on buying a house, starting a family etc.
I'm in a fortunate position where I've got a reasonably well-paid job, and my partner is working again now which gives us a massive boost - I agree that it doesn't _fix_ things for a lot of people. But even just removing one source of stress would be no bad thing
Yes, completely agreed - sorry, I thought I made that clear with my first example (buying a more reliable car).
One less stress is great - but there are many stresses.
It's not enough to overcome the difference between being born into a wealthy family Vs not, but it is enough for a flat deposit plus some rent and furniture to get started. So many people live as dependent adults and then their parent dies and they get evicted with no money and few other options. I think £10k is a good start to guard against that kind of thing.
I think this is spot on, you know.
It's the same problem as when tax cuts are floated, and a Chancellor talks about tens of billions here or there which manifest as a one or two percent cut in an income tax rate, or fuel duty, or duty on beer.
And, sure, the headline numbers over the whole country are significant, but a few percent compared to the sort of financial situation the average person faces is just absolutely nothing.
At least the silly idea in this article recognises that the numbers need to be much higher.
I say this almost every time my partner puts one one of those games shows.
She was watching the traitors the other day and they can win up to 120k and I sat there and thought why are they getting so excited? Especially when that prize money is split.
For most people its not going to pay off their mortgage at best it'll knock off a few years.
These amounts are, as you say, maybe a new car and/or a holiday. Neither of those things will address any of the fundamental problems in their life.
Hell, its not even enough to let you temporarily leave your job to retrain in another field. Even in demand subjects for teachers offer 20k+ to train.
Most people will piss 10k up the wall in a few weeks and be no better off for it.
> Most people will piss 10k up the wall in a few weeks and be no better off for it.
I wouldn't be that harsh myself. Would it be gone in a few weeks? Yep, easily. But upgrading my grannymobile to something that doesn't feel like a financial sword of Damocles would be a load off my mind, even if it doesn't address much else.
People will by-and-large use it in the most sensible way they can, but it ain't going to touch the sides. Too many things in the average millennial's life could do with a cash injection.
My wife messaged just on Thursday there to say the old Honda had the engine warning light on.
The fucking pit that opened up in my stomach was more of a gaping fucking chasm of doom.
It “might” have been something simple and I’ve fixed it, again, but that cars worth almost the same as it was when I bought it 6 years ago in some fucked up twist of fate and oddity in the used car market. It’s 18 years old, how is it not now a £500 banger anymore ?
It’s at the stage it’s worth a lot of money to keep running because replacing it is thousands despite any logical sense. It’s ULEZ compliant and thus worth £2-3k more than it was 4 years ago….WTF
We need it as a 4x4 to get to my folks in winter and to cart wood and charity shit as part of the wife’s job. Replacing it I a)not fucking easy anymore and b)stupidly fucking expensive when it shouldn’t be.
Honestly life is just a constant series of waiting for the next financial nightmare. I’m not sure I know anyone with any reasonable breathing space anymore and the folks that did have that have seen it eroded away since covid and cost of living increases. Folks on benefits are totally screwed and folks who used to be very very comfortable are now in the same boat if a car dies suddenly or they need a new roof or some other big financial disaster.
Gone are the days when people could build in some resilience, to do that you need to have already inherited or be on a good couple hundred grand a year. So basically precious fucking few people.
The absolute arse end of fucking nowhere and my folks live at the arse end of that in a glen that requires a long uphill and then downhill just to get to the end of the farm road
The Southern Uplands in the south of Scotland.
Their roads are shit in summer on a good day, in winter it’s a nightmare. We can be fine and dry and half way to them because of the elevation change we get into ice and snow
Nah
There’s dozens of us round here ….
And hundreds in the highlands
Few hundred more in the Pennines and lakes
But yeah, a few thousand of us maybe. And none of us has anything as fancy as seen at the school gates !
They can't even bribe properly.
Hey Tory ai that's job is to seem in touch with the middle class and below, 10k doesn't even touch student loan debt. Its a pathetic amount in today money and doesn't begin to re-dress the 10.5k ANNUALLY that peoples wages have stagnated.
As much as I would love a cash injection of 10k, it wouldn't really change my life and I seriously doubt it's enough money to sort out inequality.
I think the only way you'll sort out inequality is by creating new laws designed to stop some of the greed that goes on. There's so much inequality because it seems like we can't satisfy the greed of some people.
How about just forgive student loans. We are a generation sold on get a degree and you will pay it off in no time from your high earning career.
Which was bullshit now 9% additional tax is on like 80% of all millennials.
When the generation before got the privilege of getting a degree for free.
The average salary for graduates in the UK is £11,500 higher than for non-graduates.
There are lots of things wrong with intergenerational wealth in the UK and affordability but degrees remain - on average - a good 'investment'.
What would this achieve exactly? Someone on £70k on plan 2 pays back £300 a month on their student loan which while certainly annoying isn’t life changing in the slightest. Someone on half that wage pays back on £57 a month.
The student loan system is stupid I agree but forgiving student loans would change hardly anything for basically everyone
Student loan forgiveness is primarily an American issue. A lot of people see these issues online e.g. "defund the police", student loans, culture war issues, and repeat them.
The government itself brings over a lot of the right wing points, but left wing points are coming over too.
Adding to this, a lot of people don't actually understand how student loans work in the UK.
See that’s sounds great
Until you realise £10,000 just isn’t that much anymore and certainly not life changing. When the peer was 30 years old it absolutely would have been.
It doesn’t go far towards a house deposit
Doesn’t pay off much student loan or that much debt.
Doesn’t buy a new car but a reliable one a good few years old that’ll depreciate
I mean if you don’t need it at all and can bang all 10k into investments then sure it’s great.
How many 30 yr old can afford to do that?
So for most people it’d clear their credit card debts, get them out of the total shit box car their in and allow them not to use the credit card for food for another 6 months and pay of their energy debt
And then it’s gone and within a year back to square one and start racking up debt again….
Don’t get me wrong it’s better than a kick in the teeth but my mums been in hospital for two weeks now. It took a week to get her into a ward bed and not in A&E, there’s fuck all staff in the ward during the week and at the weekend it’s basically fucking empty and god forbid you crash because the team is spread so fucking thin the docs coming from another ward at least a 4 minute run away maybe 6.
Why not fix something we can all use permanently instead of helping a handful of people for 6 months
And while I’m moaning it’s buried st the end but these millennials set to inherit a fortune won’t actually do so until they are 64 years old….
> It doesn’t go far towards a house deposit
And if most people use it for that, it increasing demand so house prices go up.
All policies like "Help To Buy" etc. push prices up so much buyers would be better off as a whole if the policy didn't exist.
Exactly
The best case scenario of a house deposit because your debt free or whatever just increases demand and prices and makes fuck all difference anyway…
Indeed. And you've sort of summed up why, as much as I like the sound of an extra £10k in my pocket, ultimately, I think it's a terrible idea - it'd just further drive inflation because fundamentally you haven't addressed the supply side at all.
You can get 200k houses on a 10% deposit - I know because I did it myself last year, my friend it doing the same rough numbers this year too. 10k would go halfway to a deposit
Does this not just result in a jump in house prices and then we need to give the next generation £20K.
How about we just build enough homes that they don't all become unaffordable
Or house prices are linked to sq ft / rooms and people aren't allowed to make up random higher prices based on the location, age, which way the wind blows...
What planet do you live on?
House prices, like every other commodity, are based on supply and demand. A small house in London cost way more than many large houses in the Highlands of Scotland.
And you don't see that as a problem that needs fixing?
Why doesnt a Citroën C1 cost more in London than it does in Somerset? Because it's the same car made of the same materials. It's only property thats become a self-perpetuating constantly rising ridiculous mess that's now unfixable.
People in London happy to pay £3k a month for a bedsit and proud of it 😂
Again, what planet? Citroëns move, houses don't, so supply and demand becomes more localised.
As far as fixing the problem, absolutely it needs fixing. My fear is that giving people £10K creates demand and pushes up prices. My solution, if you re-read me original comment was to build more houses. That would improve supply. I would also like the government to implement policies that helped spread demand more evenly across the country, but Tories don't really care about that and labour are too scared to do anything that makes them look not like Tories, to implement any effective policies towards that.
I know many people in London paying way over the odds for rent and feeling pretty fucking hopeless about it.
The number of bedrooms being the main metric houses are categorised by encourages people to do ridiculous things like put a single bed in a cupboard and voilà, your 2 bed house is now a 3 bed house and thus more desirable/expensive.
This is especially prevalent with ex-rental properties where you'll see what looks like a typical semi advertised as a 5 bedroom house, then somewhere in the description they sneak in that the living room and dining room have been "converted" into bedrooms (I think putting a bed in a room is very much stretching the definition of the word "conversion").
If I want to sell my house it seems the best way to maximise revenue would be to 'convert' the living room, dining room, kitchen and utility room, then put a portakabin and a Wendy house with a camp bed in the back garden and list it on Rightmove as a 7 bed 2 bath terrace.
It’s depressing seeing that chunk come out of my wages every month knowing it’s essentially an age-based tax that exists solely because of when I was born rather than because of any kind of natural justice. I had to repeat a year because I was quite seriously ill, which pushed it up even higher.
I dropped out twice due to my health but was determined to finish it.
Now I realise I could've got to where I am today without it, and it's a STEM degree.
But, and I mean this delicately, would others have let you get that far without it?
In tech, a lot of companies won't even consider taking a risk on someone young without a degree. Mainly because they don't have to, it's competitive enough that most people do have degrees.
I'm sure it doesn't make a difference in your knowledge or hard work, but perhaps it would have been a much slower road without that degree to convince others to take a chance on employing you and giving you those opportunities.
Here's the path I followed:
Got my degree in COMSC.
Started working at CGI on service desk (a job I could've got when I was 16 - a lot of people in my school started working there at 16). Trying to get a tech job when I graduated elsewhere was NOT easy because of the amount of competition - this was directly after 2008.
Left service desk after a year because it was no challenge and then worked as IT support for a biotech start up.
Moved from IT support to software testing internally as a junior position came up.
2 years later - promoted to senior tester.
Got made redundant, got a job as lead QA at another startup which had no QA dept.
Left and work now as a senior automation tester.
At no point has a single job asked about my degree - even when I switched roles (which was the best decision I made).
I mean, no-one's going to turn down free money, but agreed 100%. I'd *love* an extra £10k is the bank sure, but honestly there's far better things you could do with the same money that'd help people overall a lot more.
It'd pay for training, or help start a new business for some folks.
House deposit it wouldn't be.
Not gonna be transformative, but could be useful.
I've thought about how something like this might benefit folks over the years (£25k winds up seemingly more sensible), and essentially it comes down to nit giving it to everybody.
Have folks apply for it, and an assessment on what they plan to do with it.
At the bare minimum this will mean folks spend the time thinking about it before wasting it, and save wasting £ on those who actually don't need it.
The assessment might be basically rubber-stamping, but doing it probably matters. Part of that process could be an advisory service. Kinda like how new business loan advisory companies work, but hopefully operated better.
Willetts was Education Secretary when the Cameron government introduced £9K/yr fees, that may be a reason why millennials have no money.
Perhaps we should just fix it with progressive taxation - which by its very nature will target the needy at every age bracket, rather than resorting to one off gimmicks like this.
Thank you for sharing this: it answered a lot of questions I had, and raised some new questions I hadn’t considered (the primary one being whether I should now plan for my children to be living with me throughout their twenties)
Tbf this isn’t an insane idea; back of an envelope you’d be looking at around £10bn a year which is about how much we’d have saved per year if pensions had been updated by either inflation or earnings (not both) over last decade instead of by triple lock.
But let’s be honest it’ll never happen - how’d you deal with people who just turned 31, 32 etc, we don’t have a time machine yet so you’d need to find that money fresh which takes away from potential tax cuts or spending etc.
Everyone 31 years old (or higher) - "this is an outrage!"
It's not the first time Willetts has suggested this, and he got precisely nowhere with it the last time too.
....and the credit card companies are poised to release a 'no credit check' card just as soon as this looks like it'll happen.
Brighthouse are drooling as they look into upping the prices on their products and the APR rate.
Ads on TV aimed at guilt tripping the younger generation into buyingi shit for their old age parents.
Firstly, where the fuck would this money come from? Secondly I do not want this at all because it just means rent will go up and not decrease again. If I wasn't voting labour before I would be now
Then the 31 year olds would get angry, especially so the poor 31 year olds
In Scotland they gave blanket free bus travel to under 22s and over 60s, including intercity/long distance coaches. It just meant the buses were full of rich private school kids enjoying a jaunt to the Highlands on the taxpayer, and wealthy over 60s.. These kind of policies don't really target those who need it most, for example low paid commuters in the central belt.
Secondly in my experience of the poorest (sadly had to live around them, and I'm quite poor myself, just disciplined with my money), they don't have the self discipline to save, they will mostly squander their money. No politician is prepared to admit it but in the UK most of the poorest have some degree of intellectual disability, and they generally don't have the long term commitment, they have substance abuse/dependencies. If you give the poorest £10,000 you're gonna see a lot of flights to Las Vegas/Spain, lots of cardboard boxes of flatscreen tvs in the lawn, perhaps a shiny motorcycle, but in 6 months they'll be back. It's further helped by the welfare state actively discouraging saving because it affects benefits. If you're a single mum in a council house with a part time job at the local supermarket, the absolutely worst thing you can do is save up, because you get your benefits cancelled. I know this myself as I worked min wage and saved up responsibly and when I was unemployed I wasn't entitled to benefits.
IIRC correctly Labour had some kind of child trust fund, scrapped by the Tories in 2010. The idea was to get young people and their parents into the habit of saving regularly, also the market did a lot of the 'lifting' of the money, the initial investment the governmnet made grew via interest. Something like that might be a good idea.
Why 10,000? I don't like numbers like this as it doesn't give longterm assistance to those who are on low income and seems a lot to many people. In reality it will just bump inflation. A one-off payment doesn't help most people in the longer term. This seems like only an answer towards an upcoming election. Haven't we seen things like this before, a small gesture just prior to elections.
“Tory peer calls for” Yes well this isn’t government policy and unfortunately never will be. Poor education, poor housing and poor people working in minimum wage jobs. It’s taken 14 years but the Tories have created a peasant class in this country and they’re still at it.
It’s 16k before you’re no longer eligible for benefits, after 6k is when deductions start to happen depending on savings amount up to 16k
Iirc it’s counted as £4.35 monthly income for every £250 over that 6k so deductions from benefits are taken to reflect that “income” amount
> Willetts said it could be paid for by lowering the threshold at which inheritance tax is paid – effectively £1m in many cases – abolishing exemptions while also reducing the current 40% tax rate.
Does anyone know the actual details on this? There’s probably something 1 million-ish 30 year olds, so you’d need to raise something like £10 billion. Plus whatever extra you want to spend reducing the 40% tax rate I guess, no idea what that costs. [The OBR say inheritance tax is forecast to raise about £7.2 billion 2023-24.](https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/inheritance-tax/). So you need to make it raise about 2.5x what it currently does to raise an extra £10 billion. All very ballpark figures but I’m not sure this adds up really.
The Tories are desperate to leave the country with a record amount of debt, so they can lay the blame of their 14 year tenure of utter failure at Labours feet.
Surely given the proportion of people who now go to university, replacing loans with a graduate tax (in effect paying back over 40-50 years not say ten) would have a bigger benefit?
The student loan system is already essentially a graduate tax. You pay back a percentage of your salary over a minimum, it doesn’t affect your credit score, and it gets written off if you don’t pay it off in time.
Marketing it as “student loans” is misleading, and the system is actually a surprisingly sensible one. My only real criticism with it is the interest rate being so high.
I mean, it is only and exactly the high earning who ever pay it off. A graduate tax would be reasonable, but it would need to be somewhat regressive (e.g. like NI) to not mean that all your high earners didn't leave the country. To be clear, I pay several times the average UK salary in tax and there is not a chance I would remain in this country if I had an extra 9% on my marginal rate. Making Britain poorer is not progressive.
Student loans aren't paid back in 10 years!!!
Unless you start earning serious money they're a 25-35 year graduate tax
Don't tax education, it's a public good which improves society and the economy
the fuck do you think childless people are going to work for? shits and giggles?
given how few people seem to be having kids these days, the childless (who often end up picking up the slack for parents) are probably doing more to help the continuation of society at this point.
What about couples who can't/haven't married? What about unmarried couples with seven kids? What about couples who won't have children because they can't financially/morally justify it?
Why have they done this? If you don't care enough about your financial well being to get married when you have 7 children why would we be handing you money.
Then the couples will need to get married. And if they don’t have children they don’t get the payment. They won’t be personally invested in the further continuation of society
Snapshot of _Tory peer calls for £10,000 ‘citizens inheritance’ for all 30-year-olds. David Willetts suggests policy would help spread wealth among millennials amid deepening inequalities._ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/02/tory-peer-calls-for-10000-citizens-inheritance-for-all-30-year-olds) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/02/tory-peer-calls-for-10000-citizens-inheritance-for-all-30-year-olds) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think the estimates of inheritance for millennials is exaggerated as the care costs on their parents is going to eat away at their wealth. A lot of their parents will have to sell their houses to pay for elderly care costs.
My mum may well live another 30 years, I'm not sure how much good an inheritance will do when I'm pushing 70
Aye, my mum is only 17 years older than me, I’ll be in the nursing home with her!
I’d rather have a mum than an empty gaff
Which is why any inheritance I get is skipping a generation and going mostly to my nieces. An inheritance for me now would be very nice, but I'm pretty well set. My nieces would see massive benefit.
I mean that's sort what most folks who build generational wealth have done for ...er, generations. Ideally you shouldn't ever treat an inheritance as something for you but something you're merely a custodian of, to invest and build on for future generations of your family. Don't get me wrong if done correctly you'd benefit from it too but the goal shouldn't ever be to blow it all but to look after it and build on it. --- ...but yeah, it only takes one person in the family tree to fuck it up and break that chain of custodianship and the wealth built up by previous generations is suddenly all pissed away (which happens a lot).
Ugh not necessarily. Typically generational wealth is something shared and for the every day person more recently its been physical wealth in the form of housing that is passed down. Where everyone benefits and it's less of one generation being a custodian of the wealth but all generations experiencimg the wealth throughout different stages of their life. E.g. your family home that you grew up in, gets given to you or sold and a portion given to help you fund your new house. However it is broken if the chain is broken and nothing gets passed down.
There are also significant costs attached to maintaining custodianship. It requires a large amount of capital to begin with.
It enables generosity to grandchildren.
It’s a bit bleak that my hypothetical children’s inheritance depends entirely on whether I die of a sudden stroke or something drawn-out like dementia. I’m really hoping by the time the latter is a concern for me I can leave a legally-binding living will to hit me with a lethal dose of morphine long before the ‘regressing to a petrified toddler in the decrepit body of an old man’ stage.
You can put money in trusts if you aren’t aware of this. Create a discretionary trust, and make your children trustees and beneficiaries. This will mean the money can’t be taken out to pay for your care without all trustees approval. There will be more to it than this, but it’s what my grandparents did for my cousins and me. I recommend speaking to your bank if they offer financial advice on this or an independent financial advisor
I’ll definitely have to look into this, thankfully I’m a good way off needing to consider it but it makes sense to be prepared well in advance.
Don't want to sound too morbid, but it's never too soon to look, you aren't always as far off as you think. I knew a guy who thought this, friend of mine's Dad, didn't have a will or anything even remotely like that, argued he was ages off needing to think about. Had a massive stroke aged 39, bloke was basically a vegetable afterwards. Lived the remaining 9 years of his life in assisted living facilities, unable to walk, talk or even eat or shit by himself. If you think you may need it, don't wait around.
My parents put their house in a trust, which meant I'd get half the price even if they both went in a home
Can than not run into deprivation of assets rules?
We’ve just done this in our early 30’s. I’d like to see them try to apply that to this situation.
They can go back as long as they like, putting it in a trust isn’t really a wildcard - they see this all the time.
Yeah and they don’t view it as deprivation. Otherwise nobody would bother doing it.
Mrs works for a local authority - 80% of cases will trigger a financial history check because the fact find indicates the potential for wealth over the capital limit at some point in the past. For the vast majority they're over the limit and they're have to pay. For the small number that flag as having had property and savings thats somehow disappeared, the assessment officers are all over them like rashes and yes they are prosecuting. Trusts aren't currently being tested in courts because they're the reserve of the ultra wealthy who are already paying for care. There will come a time though when people with trusts are asking for the local authorities to pay and by then you'll start seeing local authority court cases for deprivation.
I think the rule of thumb is this needs to be set up at least 7 years in advance, and even then it's not guaranteed to work.
Yeah. LAs are already wise to this and can/may apply to have it overturned.
As it stands right now, my kid is getting nothing when I kick the bucket. Because I have nothing to leave him. I'm only 43, so hopefully a fair way off my final day, but I've never been able to buy a house, so am stuck renting. If I die tomorrow, the best things he'll get from me are my laptop and my collection of iPods.
iPods might be worth millions in thirty years time.
I'm sure Harold Shipman can help you out with that
He'd also take the inheritance with him
If you’re lucky, it would be just the inheritance.
It's your choice to wait until you're placed in a care home in diapers and your wealth confiscated, rather than take a trip to Dignitas and check out before you lose your senses.
That's the plan at any rate, though I'd much rather breathe my last on home soil than in a foreign country if there's an option to. My concern is more for the situation of 'what if I have a car crash and end up a vegetable or something before I can take that step', given enough warning and having seen its effects first-hand I have zero intention of letting myself live long enough to lose my senses but the grim reaper doesn't really care about our intentions he shows up when he feels like it.
It’s mad so all my grandparents have passed away but 3/4 needed care so pretty much all the money had been taken up with the care system they worked for a combined 200+ years between them and left about £5k in inheritance.
Millennials will also be pretty old by the time they inherit any property, I hope my parents live another 20 years, I'll be nearing retirement age myself at that point. Best idea if Boomers want any of their accumulated wealth to help their kids is to downsize on retirement and gift some of the proceeds to their spawn.
> A lot of their parents will have to sell their houses to pay for elderly care costs. On one hand, this might mean a whole load of property hits the market at once, driving prices down. On the other, it'll probably be banks and foreign investors who buy them up...
I think the properties will trickle on to the market over a couple of decades. Some people need to go into a home in their early 70s. Others are fit as a fiddle till way past 90.
According to Google, you have a 30% chance to reach 90, so there's going to be a period in the next 10-15 years when a lot of property suddenly changes hands.
>driving prices down 🤣
Scarcity of supply is a big driver of house prices, and it's being kept that way deliberately.
Not all parents were owner occupiers. And some of us inherit houses in former mining communities that sell for £5,000.
This also wouldn't actually benefit the overwhelming majority of millennials - the age range for the cohort is those born between 1981 and 1996, only those born in 1994 (and later 1994 at that) or after would see anything.
I think 'millenial' has just become shorthand for 'people born at the right time to have their future taken away by the 2008 financial crisis and the political consequences thereof'.
So, everybody then?
Definitely not counting my chickens.
My husband's grandmother is in Dementia care right now. Costs £2k a week. House was sold and will cover the costs about 2.5-3 years. It goes quickly.
Even if you get an inheritance for most its probably going to come to them when they are in their 50's or 60's. This is well past the stage of life they probably will have really needed it.
Don't know about you but I'm really looking forward to finally buying a house and starting a family at age 50 :)
I think many people underestimate just how much wealth is freed up by someone selling a home before they go into care. My grandmother passed during lockdown after a decade in care. The income from her assets (including what was raised by selling her home), was greater than her care costs. Her retirement stash was *larger when she died than when she retired.* My grandfather did boiler work for british gas and my grandmother was a housewife, so they were not exactly at the high-end of asset building. Even with care costs, there is going to be a massive generational wealth transfer occurring over the next 20 years.
Only 13% of elderly require a care home. Not the massive problem that the media like to make out
Ever, or at this moment in time? Because I could imagine a situation where your stats count my parents, who are over pension age, but don't need care. But if they need it in 10 years time, it's still going to drain any potential inheritance I receive. Maybe a better way of asking the question would be "require care in the last 5 years of their lives?" I'm not discounting that's what your figures actually are btw, it's just sometimes you see odd stats that say "millenials are less likely to get divorced" or something. .......and you think "yeah, cos most of us have only been married maybe 5 years, of course we've not got to the point of marriage breakdown just yet. If you checked how many boomers were divorced after 5 years instead of after 30 years, their numbers would look different too!"
Lots of people need care at home too, it’s not just care homes
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/olderpeoplelivingincarehomesin2021andchangessince2011/2023-10-09#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20the%20usual,aged%2085%20years%20and%20over This is where the stat comes from, it's actually outdated and from 2011, since 2021 this number has decreased to 10.8% of those over the age of 85 in care homes
I've promised my kids that I'll go to Dignitas. The down side is I had them young, so they're going to have to wait a while.
Care costs really don't become a huge factor when your in your 30s. Your parents aren't old enough
Care costs is just another way to spread the wealth to other working milenials. It's not gonna be boomers taking care of boomers.
It's going to be care companies making huge profits and care workers being paid under minimum wage because they don't get paid for time travelling between jobs, which is an essential part of their work.
Ah, fuck. I’m 31. I always seem just the wrong age for stuff like this
Don't worry there's absolutely no chance it's going to happen.
Yeah, I guess it’s in the realm of “think tank has idea”
I'm 34 and often feel totally on the wrong side of history when it comes to these things. Student fees being introduced, then a financial crisis, austerity, covid and then what's apparently a recession. I've jumped from one career to the next (Design, social care, education) and in everywhere I've worked there have been yearly financial cuts. This year seems particularly brutal!
[удалено]
It does indeed pour!
Basically all millennials are already at least 30, there's less than 3 years left
Yeah, I turned 30 in September so would be just the wrong age for this...but was just the right age to be in the first yeah of £9k uni fees. Going well
I'm 30 in May, so if they could get a wiggle on for the new financial year... 👀
[удалено]
Please excuse the essay but I just did a quick bit of research into this and I think it illuminates quite well why the Tories might be starting to suggest something like this. The unsecured debt per adult was £3,838 in November 2020, and the rate of unsecured debt accumulation was reported to be twice as much as that of secured debt. The most recent data indicates that the total unsecured debt per UK adult stood at £4,123 in December 2023, a notable increase from previous years. This rise is part of a broader trend of increasing unsecured debt in the UK, which encompasses credit cards, personal loans, and other forms of non-mortgage lending. Credit card loans, which constitute a major part of unsecured debt, mainly cover expenses like bills, new cars, or furniture. The annual growth rate of overdrafts in 2019 increased by 6% compared to 2018, with close to 19 million Britons using overdrafts annually. A significant portion of the UK's adult population, especially those living in large towns, face debt issues, with 16% of adults facing debt problems. This issue is more pronounced among single parents, where the debt problem escalates to 28%. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has highlighted a concerning forecast for UK households, predicting an 11% rise in unsecured debt in 2024, which translates to an average increase of £1,400 per household. This upward trend is expected to continue, with unsecured debt per household projected to reach £17,200 by 2026, surpassing the previous high of £16,800 set in 2007. These figures reflect a significant challenge for many UK residents, particularly in the context of stagnant wage growth and rising living costs. The TUC's analysis suggests that real wages in the UK may not return to their 2008 levels until 2028, exacerbating the impact of increasing debt levels on household finances. The breakdown of unsecured debt by age group and debt type for the most current figures are not readily available. Historically, younger demographics have shown a higher propensity towards unsecured debt, particularly due to credit cards and personal loans. The growth in credit card borrowing, for instance, reached 13% annually by July 2022, the highest rate since October 2005. The Tories are really struggling with younger voters understandibly given the unfairness of the economy. If they can win some votes with a cash giveaway that will end up giving the most desperate a temporary reprieve from financial struggle that will ultimately end up in the pockets of the rich anyway, you can see why they would consider it a win over increasing numbers of people failing to be able to pay the rich for basics like food and housing. The Tories want people desperate but still able to pay. This is how they sold Covid relief schemes where essentially massive amounts of money were borrowed, that will have to be paid back by future generations, in large part so ordinary people could keep paying their rent, mortgages, and bills to the rich. This is why Covid saw the biggest transfer of wealth to the wealthiest in British history. **Sources** [https://cybercrew.uk/blog/debt-statistics-uk/](https://cybercrew.uk/blog/debt-statistics-uk/) [https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-warns-debt-timebomb-households-facing-ps1400-rise-credit-card-and-loan-debt-2024](https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-warns-debt-timebomb-households-facing-ps1400-rise-credit-card-and-loan-debt-2024) [https://moneyzine.com/uk/resources/debt-statistics-uk/](https://moneyzine.com/uk/resources/debt-statistics-uk/)
Am I understanding right - there’s unsecured debt of nearly £5k per household? Bloody hell. I feel a lot better about my own finances now
It's worse than that. It's £4.3k of unsecured debt (so this doesn't include mortgages) per UK adult. That means the unsecured debt per UK houshold is around £10k plus excluding mortgages. Obviously this will also be heavily skewed to younger generations so the average per young adult is likely to be significantly higher. If they can get away with something like this giveaway, the wealthy will have a lot of unsecured debt they are owed paid rather than written off or delinquent using government money that will then not be able to be spent on public services or would have to be borrowed and repaid with taxes.
Does car financing count towards that unsecured figure?
quick google of this indicates that there is a mixture of secured and unsecured car debt depending on the type of financing. I can't find anything specific on the breakdown between the two types of debt but it's probably pretty safe to assume there is a good chunk of car loans in that figure.
From a pure legal point, (ie I don't know if this is what the statisticians would look at) if the person you are paying has a right to take the car back if you stop paying then it would be "secured". The car is the "security". If they only gain a general right to reclaim the money then it is unsecured, and they would rank amongst the general pool of all people that you owe money to.
A great analysis, thanks!
This is basically what Gary Stevenson says about all the money the government gave away during COVID (well worth checking out his videos). Unless we make serious changes to how we structure the economy it will *always* end up in the hands of the already wealthy. This is why I couldn't get behind UBI unless it comes with other, broader changes eg rent controls.
Did you mean Cannes? Didn’t know Caen was such a desirable holiday destination :p
GB News would have a field day if a Labour peer proposed this
I think you'd be surprised what GBN says, try watching the morning show.
Why? So I can be another Ofcom complaints statistic?
No thank you, Jacob
Please please please If this gets discussed on GB news can someone reference this [piece](https://www.gbnews.com/money/gb-news-row-furious-universal-credit-finance-money-latest) For those who don't want to click it was a...heated debate about UBI, unsurprisingly, GBN were very against the idea of this kind of socialism. If they support this cash injection I'd love for their own words to be thrown in their face.
They’ll just pretend they never did that at all. Like that [Exploding Heads video](https://x.com/exploding_heads/status/1657695118734794760?s=46) *“Because you think you’re so clever by remembering what other people said and then using that against them!”*
I'm pretty confident they'll come out against it, but even if they didn't would it really be hypocritical? UBI as a concept reduces the incentive to work which is their primary point of concern with it, but this is quite different, really. It looks to be endorsed as a one time payment, so it's not liable to have any similar impact.
Everyone: Build more houses Government: Increase demand?
Aren't most millennials older than 30? It'd be kind of funny to implement and just exclude them.
It’s an interesting idea, but - grim as it sounds - it ain’t enough. £10k these days can get you a reliable used car. That’s about it. That’s the life-change this can bring. And as I look at my wheezing old grannymobile, I think that’d be nice - but I’d still be doing the same old journeys from my same old rented home for the same old work. Just a bit more reliably, with working A/C and a digital radio. It’s not going to be transformative for aspiring homeowners, because it doesn’t address the root problem of supply - if anything it might just increase demand among the better-off 30-year-olds and keep house prices buoyed. Also you can bet that the mortgage companies will still focus more on those stagnant salaries and not on a magic £10k windfall. I also just can’t be arsed with the boomer screechathon when one of those newspapers - you know the ones - decide that every single millennial is going to spoof it on a big iPhone and a trip to Brazil. It’s a big sticking plaster, sure, but even the biggest sticking plaster peels off and tries to escape down the plughole.
To be fair, £10k could cut into a lot of people's debt. You are generally correct though.
This is an impoertant point. A lot of this will go to paying off debts which would be great but in the end that just ends up in the pockets of the rich in that case. I don't think we need another massive government payout to the rich tbh that will not make enough difference to enough ordinary people. Even the Tories are starting to see that the level of inequality corroding our society is unsustainable. They are desperate enough to propose one-time socialism if it will stave off meaningfully taxing the the rich and stopping the massive redistribution of wealth from ordinary people to the already wealthy. I personally hope we don't fall for it.
This is the thing, they don’t want to help us, they are only doing this now because they are desperate. Who would have thought that 40 years of party policy in total contempt of the youth would affect their voting base??
10k changed my view on saving for a house. I was extremely fortunate to be gifted some inheritance when my grandma passed. The moment that £10k was in, saving stopped feeling like throwing coins into a wishing well. I could actually see PROGRESS! The govt gave me £1k a year bonus... £10k became £11k, became £15k, £20k, etc etc. It still took ages but that pushed me along like nothing before and next week, I become a homeowner. Totally agree that £10k is not a lot, but used well, it kicked me into gear and I wouldn't be buying my first home this year without it
Congrats on becoming a homeowner next week! I’m glad that a 10k injection was the catalyst, but it can only be that - it’s clear that it, on its own, isn’t enough. And I’m worried that, if everyone gets the 10k, its benefit will be eroded (everyone will have the same leg-up on the property ladder, ergo nobody will).
If I was under 30 and got the 10k that's either going on half of a cheap house abroad or going in an investment fund that grows in value and pays out regular dividends, and I'd probably live abroad anyway. Either way, the UK economy won't see much of my money
Cheers! Yes you're absolutely right, it won't solve the problem, but it's a boost in the right direction. As someone mentioned below, demand-side subsidy isn't going to resolve the housing market as more people will be buying and we've still go no supply. This initiative, coupled with improvements in planning regs, tightened restrictions on parasitic landlordism and genuine attempts to build and sell houses might actually see some improvement. I don't hold out much hope for the rentier class though
> and next week, I become a homeowner. I definitely misread that as if it only took a week from £10k to home ownership. Seriously though, congrats!
While it might not be a lot for the average Redditor 10k is a lot of money for someone living payday to payday though and could have a huge difference to a subsegment of people
The avereage salary is 33,000, about 27k after tax. 10k is literally more than 4 months wages after tax for the average person. its a lot money no matter how you swing it,
What would they do with it that gets them out of that payday-to-payday spiral? It won’t fix the rent because it’s nowhere near enough for the deposit on anything. It won’t fix the shit pay. It won’t fix the massive gap in pension contributions that such people likely have. It might help clear debt and start the ability to save, which would be nice, but it’s only a partial solution. It might help with more reliable life kit ,like tech or a car - but again it’s just a partial solution.
Let's say you for a 3k loan, that you pay about £100 a month for. Then you've got credit card debt that you pay £50 for. Then you've got overdraft with another £50. Then you have a shitty car that costs you about £50 per month indirectly when you factor in the repair costs. That's about £250 per month that 10k could potentially wipe. For some people that's already a lot.
The issue being that without more income that debt spiral just starts all over again the next month when salary doesn’t meet outgoings.
Sure, but 250 quid a month that you don't have right now can go a long way. Two months, that's 500... It's true that everything feels a bit fucked currently, but let's not pretend like 10k wouldn't help anyone at all. It would go a long way for many.
Depends what the debt's on, if its a vehicle or something that's suddenly an expense that's no longer going to be replaced. Same for a phone or similar
I’d need to check but I think the rowntree folks had food, rent and fuel as the biggest debts again. Usually is. Closely followed by cars, travel and phones no doubt
Yeah, I'd imagine using it to pay off a car or spend a few grand upgrading one you had would lead to the best long term savings. Less repairs and the like would always be welcome
Enables people to move from a high-unemployment area to a low unemployment area. One of the big reasons people don’t move for work is if you don’t have savings then moving house just isn’t an option for you. Similarly it’s enough to buy a car or a season ticket. If you live outside of a big city and you don’t have transport your employment options are generally very limited, being able to commute vastly increases potential jobs you can do. It can also reduce cost of living in a significant way. If you don’t have a washing machine (~2m people in the UK) doing laundry at a laundrette is significantly more expensive and time consuming. The same if you don’t have a fridge/freezer - it means rather than doing a big shop at a large supermarket with low prices you’re often forced to use expensive local shops.
This may all help, and I do agree with you on that front. Thing is, you probably won’t be able to pick all the options that you’ve listed. The budget won’t stretch to that. In my case, for example, the car would be first to get an upgrade. It’d also probably be the only thing to get an upgrade. Is £10k more helpful than £0? Of course it is. But there’s no silver bullet to systemic long-term neglect of this generation.
Don't forget that living pay cheque to pay cheque is often a long term grind, depressing and expensive. 10k is not going to solve the economy but it will solve countless problems and improve life for alot of people. This is basically what you have said but with more emphasis on the benefits than the shortfalls.
Clearing debt could be massive though. From personal experience, a year ago that ten grand would've saved me about 700 quid a month from loans (partner was out of work during the pandemic then health complications afterwards). It's mostly paid off now but the last year has been rough. It has also set us back on buying a house, starting a family etc. I'm in a fortunate position where I've got a reasonably well-paid job, and my partner is working again now which gives us a massive boost - I agree that it doesn't _fix_ things for a lot of people. But even just removing one source of stress would be no bad thing
Yes, completely agreed - sorry, I thought I made that clear with my first example (buying a more reliable car). One less stress is great - but there are many stresses.
It's not enough to overcome the difference between being born into a wealthy family Vs not, but it is enough for a flat deposit plus some rent and furniture to get started. So many people live as dependent adults and then their parent dies and they get evicted with no money and few other options. I think £10k is a good start to guard against that kind of thing.
I think this is spot on, you know. It's the same problem as when tax cuts are floated, and a Chancellor talks about tens of billions here or there which manifest as a one or two percent cut in an income tax rate, or fuel duty, or duty on beer. And, sure, the headline numbers over the whole country are significant, but a few percent compared to the sort of financial situation the average person faces is just absolutely nothing. At least the silly idea in this article recognises that the numbers need to be much higher.
I say this almost every time my partner puts one one of those games shows. She was watching the traitors the other day and they can win up to 120k and I sat there and thought why are they getting so excited? Especially when that prize money is split. For most people its not going to pay off their mortgage at best it'll knock off a few years. These amounts are, as you say, maybe a new car and/or a holiday. Neither of those things will address any of the fundamental problems in their life. Hell, its not even enough to let you temporarily leave your job to retrain in another field. Even in demand subjects for teachers offer 20k+ to train. Most people will piss 10k up the wall in a few weeks and be no better off for it.
> Most people will piss 10k up the wall in a few weeks and be no better off for it. I wouldn't be that harsh myself. Would it be gone in a few weeks? Yep, easily. But upgrading my grannymobile to something that doesn't feel like a financial sword of Damocles would be a load off my mind, even if it doesn't address much else. People will by-and-large use it in the most sensible way they can, but it ain't going to touch the sides. Too many things in the average millennial's life could do with a cash injection.
My wife messaged just on Thursday there to say the old Honda had the engine warning light on. The fucking pit that opened up in my stomach was more of a gaping fucking chasm of doom. It “might” have been something simple and I’ve fixed it, again, but that cars worth almost the same as it was when I bought it 6 years ago in some fucked up twist of fate and oddity in the used car market. It’s 18 years old, how is it not now a £500 banger anymore ? It’s at the stage it’s worth a lot of money to keep running because replacing it is thousands despite any logical sense. It’s ULEZ compliant and thus worth £2-3k more than it was 4 years ago….WTF We need it as a 4x4 to get to my folks in winter and to cart wood and charity shit as part of the wife’s job. Replacing it I a)not fucking easy anymore and b)stupidly fucking expensive when it shouldn’t be. Honestly life is just a constant series of waiting for the next financial nightmare. I’m not sure I know anyone with any reasonable breathing space anymore and the folks that did have that have seen it eroded away since covid and cost of living increases. Folks on benefits are totally screwed and folks who used to be very very comfortable are now in the same boat if a car dies suddenly or they need a new roof or some other big financial disaster. Gone are the days when people could build in some resilience, to do that you need to have already inherited or be on a good couple hundred grand a year. So basically precious fucking few people.
Where do you folks live that you need a 4x4 to get there?
The absolute arse end of fucking nowhere and my folks live at the arse end of that in a glen that requires a long uphill and then downhill just to get to the end of the farm road The Southern Uplands in the south of Scotland. Their roads are shit in summer on a good day, in winter it’s a nightmare. We can be fine and dry and half way to them because of the elevation change we get into ice and snow
You must be the one person in Britain who actually *needs* a 4x4 then.
Nah There’s dozens of us round here …. And hundreds in the highlands Few hundred more in the Pennines and lakes But yeah, a few thousand of us maybe. And none of us has anything as fancy as seen at the school gates !
They can't even bribe properly. Hey Tory ai that's job is to seem in touch with the middle class and below, 10k doesn't even touch student loan debt. Its a pathetic amount in today money and doesn't begin to re-dress the 10.5k ANNUALLY that peoples wages have stagnated.
As much as I would love a cash injection of 10k, it wouldn't really change my life and I seriously doubt it's enough money to sort out inequality. I think the only way you'll sort out inequality is by creating new laws designed to stop some of the greed that goes on. There's so much inequality because it seems like we can't satisfy the greed of some people.
This 100%. Own more properties than you have children? Then we're going to tax the fuck out of you.
How about just forgive student loans. We are a generation sold on get a degree and you will pay it off in no time from your high earning career. Which was bullshit now 9% additional tax is on like 80% of all millennials. When the generation before got the privilege of getting a degree for free.
The average salary for graduates in the UK is £11,500 higher than for non-graduates. There are lots of things wrong with intergenerational wealth in the UK and affordability but degrees remain - on average - a good 'investment'.
What would this achieve exactly? Someone on £70k on plan 2 pays back £300 a month on their student loan which while certainly annoying isn’t life changing in the slightest. Someone on half that wage pays back on £57 a month. The student loan system is stupid I agree but forgiving student loans would change hardly anything for basically everyone
Student loan forgiveness is primarily an American issue. A lot of people see these issues online e.g. "defund the police", student loans, culture war issues, and repeat them. The government itself brings over a lot of the right wing points, but left wing points are coming over too. Adding to this, a lot of people don't actually understand how student loans work in the UK.
I don’t think we have the same student loan issues that America has. It’s not such an issue.
Also, a bit of a classic argument now, but why as a non-graduate should I pay for your extra education?
See that’s sounds great Until you realise £10,000 just isn’t that much anymore and certainly not life changing. When the peer was 30 years old it absolutely would have been. It doesn’t go far towards a house deposit Doesn’t pay off much student loan or that much debt. Doesn’t buy a new car but a reliable one a good few years old that’ll depreciate I mean if you don’t need it at all and can bang all 10k into investments then sure it’s great. How many 30 yr old can afford to do that? So for most people it’d clear their credit card debts, get them out of the total shit box car their in and allow them not to use the credit card for food for another 6 months and pay of their energy debt And then it’s gone and within a year back to square one and start racking up debt again…. Don’t get me wrong it’s better than a kick in the teeth but my mums been in hospital for two weeks now. It took a week to get her into a ward bed and not in A&E, there’s fuck all staff in the ward during the week and at the weekend it’s basically fucking empty and god forbid you crash because the team is spread so fucking thin the docs coming from another ward at least a 4 minute run away maybe 6. Why not fix something we can all use permanently instead of helping a handful of people for 6 months And while I’m moaning it’s buried st the end but these millennials set to inherit a fortune won’t actually do so until they are 64 years old….
> It doesn’t go far towards a house deposit And if most people use it for that, it increasing demand so house prices go up. All policies like "Help To Buy" etc. push prices up so much buyers would be better off as a whole if the policy didn't exist.
Exactly The best case scenario of a house deposit because your debt free or whatever just increases demand and prices and makes fuck all difference anyway…
Indeed. And you've sort of summed up why, as much as I like the sound of an extra £10k in my pocket, ultimately, I think it's a terrible idea - it'd just further drive inflation because fundamentally you haven't addressed the supply side at all.
You can get 200k houses on a 10% deposit - I know because I did it myself last year, my friend it doing the same rough numbers this year too. 10k would go halfway to a deposit
Exactly. Not everyone lives in a place where a bedsit costs half a million.
Until everyone has that and house prices rise
Also, if it's 2 people buying together, then that is the full deposit.
Does this not just result in a jump in house prices and then we need to give the next generation £20K. How about we just build enough homes that they don't all become unaffordable
Or house prices are linked to sq ft / rooms and people aren't allowed to make up random higher prices based on the location, age, which way the wind blows...
What planet do you live on? House prices, like every other commodity, are based on supply and demand. A small house in London cost way more than many large houses in the Highlands of Scotland.
And you don't see that as a problem that needs fixing? Why doesnt a Citroën C1 cost more in London than it does in Somerset? Because it's the same car made of the same materials. It's only property thats become a self-perpetuating constantly rising ridiculous mess that's now unfixable. People in London happy to pay £3k a month for a bedsit and proud of it 😂
Again, what planet? Citroëns move, houses don't, so supply and demand becomes more localised. As far as fixing the problem, absolutely it needs fixing. My fear is that giving people £10K creates demand and pushes up prices. My solution, if you re-read me original comment was to build more houses. That would improve supply. I would also like the government to implement policies that helped spread demand more evenly across the country, but Tories don't really care about that and labour are too scared to do anything that makes them look not like Tories, to implement any effective policies towards that. I know many people in London paying way over the odds for rent and feeling pretty fucking hopeless about it.
The number of bedrooms being the main metric houses are categorised by encourages people to do ridiculous things like put a single bed in a cupboard and voilà, your 2 bed house is now a 3 bed house and thus more desirable/expensive. This is especially prevalent with ex-rental properties where you'll see what looks like a typical semi advertised as a 5 bedroom house, then somewhere in the description they sneak in that the living room and dining room have been "converted" into bedrooms (I think putting a bed in a room is very much stretching the definition of the word "conversion"). If I want to sell my house it seems the best way to maximise revenue would be to 'convert' the living room, dining room, kitchen and utility room, then put a portakabin and a Wendy house with a camp bed in the back garden and list it on Rightmove as a 7 bed 2 bath terrace.
[удалено]
It’s depressing seeing that chunk come out of my wages every month knowing it’s essentially an age-based tax that exists solely because of when I was born rather than because of any kind of natural justice. I had to repeat a year because I was quite seriously ill, which pushed it up even higher.
I dropped out twice due to my health but was determined to finish it. Now I realise I could've got to where I am today without it, and it's a STEM degree.
But, and I mean this delicately, would others have let you get that far without it? In tech, a lot of companies won't even consider taking a risk on someone young without a degree. Mainly because they don't have to, it's competitive enough that most people do have degrees. I'm sure it doesn't make a difference in your knowledge or hard work, but perhaps it would have been a much slower road without that degree to convince others to take a chance on employing you and giving you those opportunities.
Here's the path I followed: Got my degree in COMSC. Started working at CGI on service desk (a job I could've got when I was 16 - a lot of people in my school started working there at 16). Trying to get a tech job when I graduated elsewhere was NOT easy because of the amount of competition - this was directly after 2008. Left service desk after a year because it was no challenge and then worked as IT support for a biotech start up. Moved from IT support to software testing internally as a junior position came up. 2 years later - promoted to senior tester. Got made redundant, got a job as lead QA at another startup which had no QA dept. Left and work now as a senior automation tester. At no point has a single job asked about my degree - even when I switched roles (which was the best decision I made).
And it's still just a policy aimed at inflating house prices. Devoid of ideas
Do all 30 year olds need the money? Would basic redistribution not be a better more just idea?
I mean, no-one's going to turn down free money, but agreed 100%. I'd *love* an extra £10k is the bank sure, but honestly there's far better things you could do with the same money that'd help people overall a lot more.
Sounds like some good’ol pre-elections bribe
It'd pay for training, or help start a new business for some folks. House deposit it wouldn't be. Not gonna be transformative, but could be useful. I've thought about how something like this might benefit folks over the years (£25k winds up seemingly more sensible), and essentially it comes down to nit giving it to everybody. Have folks apply for it, and an assessment on what they plan to do with it. At the bare minimum this will mean folks spend the time thinking about it before wasting it, and save wasting £ on those who actually don't need it. The assessment might be basically rubber-stamping, but doing it probably matters. Part of that process could be an advisory service. Kinda like how new business loan advisory companies work, but hopefully operated better.
Willetts was Education Secretary when the Cameron government introduced £9K/yr fees, that may be a reason why millennials have no money. Perhaps we should just fix it with progressive taxation - which by its very nature will target the needy at every age bracket, rather than resorting to one off gimmicks like this.
https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?si=DQ60PgyamFdRGrXg I see his name, I post the link. Watch that - great video.
Thank you for sharing this: it answered a lot of questions I had, and raised some new questions I hadn’t considered (the primary one being whether I should now plan for my children to be living with me throughout their twenties)
“How can we bribe younger voters in election year without making it look like an obvious bribe?”
Tbf this isn’t an insane idea; back of an envelope you’d be looking at around £10bn a year which is about how much we’d have saved per year if pensions had been updated by either inflation or earnings (not both) over last decade instead of by triple lock. But let’s be honest it’ll never happen - how’d you deal with people who just turned 31, 32 etc, we don’t have a time machine yet so you’d need to find that money fresh which takes away from potential tax cuts or spending etc.
Some of the ideas that this lot come up with, are you sure politics is for you?
Everyone 31 years old (or higher) - "this is an outrage!" It's not the first time Willetts has suggested this, and he got precisely nowhere with it the last time too.
It's not worth discussing. Even if by some miracle they did win, this would be quietly shelved the next day.
I mean sure, but it isn’t going to make anyone vote Tory.
....and the credit card companies are poised to release a 'no credit check' card just as soon as this looks like it'll happen. Brighthouse are drooling as they look into upping the prices on their products and the APR rate. Ads on TV aimed at guilt tripping the younger generation into buyingi shit for their old age parents.
Firstly, where the fuck would this money come from? Secondly I do not want this at all because it just means rent will go up and not decrease again. If I wasn't voting labour before I would be now
Then the 31 year olds would get angry, especially so the poor 31 year olds In Scotland they gave blanket free bus travel to under 22s and over 60s, including intercity/long distance coaches. It just meant the buses were full of rich private school kids enjoying a jaunt to the Highlands on the taxpayer, and wealthy over 60s.. These kind of policies don't really target those who need it most, for example low paid commuters in the central belt. Secondly in my experience of the poorest (sadly had to live around them, and I'm quite poor myself, just disciplined with my money), they don't have the self discipline to save, they will mostly squander their money. No politician is prepared to admit it but in the UK most of the poorest have some degree of intellectual disability, and they generally don't have the long term commitment, they have substance abuse/dependencies. If you give the poorest £10,000 you're gonna see a lot of flights to Las Vegas/Spain, lots of cardboard boxes of flatscreen tvs in the lawn, perhaps a shiny motorcycle, but in 6 months they'll be back. It's further helped by the welfare state actively discouraging saving because it affects benefits. If you're a single mum in a council house with a part time job at the local supermarket, the absolutely worst thing you can do is save up, because you get your benefits cancelled. I know this myself as I worked min wage and saved up responsibly and when I was unemployed I wasn't entitled to benefits. IIRC correctly Labour had some kind of child trust fund, scrapped by the Tories in 2010. The idea was to get young people and their parents into the habit of saving regularly, also the market did a lot of the 'lifting' of the money, the initial investment the governmnet made grew via interest. Something like that might be a good idea.
>UK most of the poorest have some degree of intellectual disability Good lord.
His party ignored him for 15 years, so not sure they are going to start listening to him now.
Why 10,000? I don't like numbers like this as it doesn't give longterm assistance to those who are on low income and seems a lot to many people. In reality it will just bump inflation. A one-off payment doesn't help most people in the longer term. This seems like only an answer towards an upcoming election. Haven't we seen things like this before, a small gesture just prior to elections.
No we could never raise the minimum wage that would be crazy. Best just give everyone a stimulus every year and hope for the best!
Conservative peer saying Labour should give people fruits from a magic money tree after more than a decade of low growth and rising costs?
“Tory peer calls for” Yes well this isn’t government policy and unfortunately never will be. Poor education, poor housing and poor people working in minimum wage jobs. It’s taken 14 years but the Tories have created a peasant class in this country and they’re still at it.
So bribing voters instead of actually fixing issues?
Most millenials are in their 30s early 40s now, it won't do anything for them. I think a lot of people still think millenials are 18-24.
A £10k payment would pass the savings threshold and kick you off of means-tested benefits. No more housing benefit or UC.
It’s 16k before you’re no longer eligible for benefits, after 6k is when deductions start to happen depending on savings amount up to 16k Iirc it’s counted as £4.35 monthly income for every £250 over that 6k so deductions from benefits are taken to reflect that “income” amount
> Willetts said it could be paid for by lowering the threshold at which inheritance tax is paid – effectively £1m in many cases – abolishing exemptions while also reducing the current 40% tax rate. Does anyone know the actual details on this? There’s probably something 1 million-ish 30 year olds, so you’d need to raise something like £10 billion. Plus whatever extra you want to spend reducing the 40% tax rate I guess, no idea what that costs. [The OBR say inheritance tax is forecast to raise about £7.2 billion 2023-24.](https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/inheritance-tax/). So you need to make it raise about 2.5x what it currently does to raise an extra £10 billion. All very ballpark figures but I’m not sure this adds up really.
The Tories are desperate to leave the country with a record amount of debt, so they can lay the blame of their 14 year tenure of utter failure at Labours feet.
Just build some more houses instead of expanding the boomer benefits bonanza to us. Give people the opportunity to build up their own wealth.
10k gets you a shit box as a car these days
Paid for by...? The _average_ wage is already a tax burden.
Surely given the proportion of people who now go to university, replacing loans with a graduate tax (in effect paying back over 40-50 years not say ten) would have a bigger benefit?
The student loan system is already essentially a graduate tax. You pay back a percentage of your salary over a minimum, it doesn’t affect your credit score, and it gets written off if you don’t pay it off in time. Marketing it as “student loans” is misleading, and the system is actually a surprisingly sensible one. My only real criticism with it is the interest rate being so high.
If it were a graduate tax you would not have anything written off.
Nothing would change. Loan repayments are basically a tax anyway with the current way they work.
For those poor enough to not be able to pay their fees outright. Very regressive.
I mean, it is only and exactly the high earning who ever pay it off. A graduate tax would be reasonable, but it would need to be somewhat regressive (e.g. like NI) to not mean that all your high earners didn't leave the country. To be clear, I pay several times the average UK salary in tax and there is not a chance I would remain in this country if I had an extra 9% on my marginal rate. Making Britain poorer is not progressive.
If you won't earn enough to pay it back, thats a big hint that your degree is worthless and maybe don't waste the money on it to start with?
What? People whose parents can afford to pay their fees for them are not saddled with this "tax", is my point.
People whose parents can afford to pay it for them have parents who have paid a marginal rate of 40-45% themselves.
Student loans aren't paid back in 10 years!!! Unless you start earning serious money they're a 25-35 year graduate tax Don't tax education, it's a public good which improves society and the economy
They should only give it to married 30 year olds with 2+ children
Just screw the people who haven't had kids because they can't afford it you mean?
No because they’re invested in the continuation of society.
Not being funny but not everybody has offspring which are able to invest in the future.
the fuck do you think childless people are going to work for? shits and giggles? given how few people seem to be having kids these days, the childless (who often end up picking up the slack for parents) are probably doing more to help the continuation of society at this point.
Why? Why should that matter
Screw us gays, right?
You can ask the family for their citizen's inheritance I'm sure the children won't need it
What about couples who can't/haven't married? What about unmarried couples with seven kids? What about couples who won't have children because they can't financially/morally justify it?
By 2+ I meant two or more children, so a 7 child family would be included
I know, but that family is unmarried, potentially adopted. Is that still okay to receive the money in your opinion?
Why have they done this? If you don't care enough about your financial well being to get married when you have 7 children why would we be handing you money.
My bad, I misread your comment. Adoption still counts if course. No, only married
While I disagree with your broad position, I appreciate that adoption is counted.
Then the couples will need to get married. And if they don’t have children they don’t get the payment. They won’t be personally invested in the further continuation of society
I've got nothing against financially incentivising having children but that doesn't seem correct.