Pensioners escaped effects of austerity while young suffered most, says report
I have recently pondered on how difficult it is for young people to have a stake in high cost rural communities, particularly where access to local work is limited. This article provides further food for thought in that context. It tells us:
Britain’s pensioners are emerging from the austerity years with their standard of living unscathed, while their children and grandchildren are struggling to make up the ground they lost in the recession, according to new analysis by a thinktank.
As George Osborne puts the finishing touches to his pre-election budget, to be delivered next Wednesday, the research from the Resolution Foundation, first published in the Guardian, found that pensioner households saw their incomes jump by almost 10% in real terms between 2007 and 2014. Working-age households suffered a 4% cut.
This fresh analysis will reignite the debate about how the benefits of economic recovery are being shared, and whether future governments can continue to protect spending on pensioners at time when issues of intergenerational equity have come to the forefront of political debate.