Brought up in the boom time of the 1990s and the excesses of a Labour government determined to spend its way to success, you would be forgive for thinking that young people have a distorted idea of personal entitlement and individual opportunity. Young people were told that their education would be a lower price, more widely accessible and provide them with the necessary tools to secure a highly paid and exciting job at the end of the day. We would never be homeless, we would be supported in our every endeavour, and we would not be left, abandoned and struggling to survive in our rich and noble democracy. In reality, there are so few jobs that a quarter of 16-25 year olds are unemployed. In reality, more and more young people are turning to drug abuse, violence and petty crime as a way to pass the time. In reality, thousands of young people are facing the reality of homelessness and lives defined not by wealth of opportunity, but by terrible poverty and abandonment.
Listening in shock and awe to David Cameron’s proposals for the new Conservative manifesto, I was struck by the deliberate targetting of the younger generations. The Prime Minister proposed taking housing benefit away from under-25 year olds and scrapping employment benefits for under-21s, citing a “culture of entitlement” that had led young people to believe they should be paid by the state to have many babies and live in a nice house in a good area without doing a day’s real work. These reforms would save the government hundreds of millions of pounds in welfare costs each year, should the cost of welfare remain static. When challenged on where these young people would go when they had lost tehir housing benefits, the Prime Minister glibly replied that they should just move back in with their parents until they could afford to move out permanently. The under 21s who would lose employment benefits should enter into training schemes or further education, or live with their parents and be supported by them. Not only would this put pressure on parents to encourage their children to go into employment and further education, but it may also keep young people at home and in school for longer. It would also remove all expectation that leaving home and starting a family you could not personally afford to support should be a viable option.
The reality, however, is not so rosy. Expecting people under the age of 25 to just move back into the parental nest creates pressure upon the individual and their family. Perhaps the individual’s parents are dead. Perhaps they had lived with a legal guardian or foster care organisation. Maybe they have a terrible relationship with their parents. And the parents themselves: what happens if they refuse? Perhaps they can’t afford to keep their child in adulthood; they may never have had a steady job themselves, or may even have become the latest casualty of the recession. Perhaps in the intervening time between the child leaving and then being forced to return, the parents have sold the family home and moved to a smaller one bedroom apartment, with no physical space available to keep another adult in. Hell, maybe they went to France to become onion farmers. Whatever the reason, the government cannto seriously expect under-25s who cannot afford to pay rent or a mortgage to automatically be able to move home.
It sounds great though, doesn’t it? Stop those 19 year old beenfit scroungers having babies to get more cash and put them back in the parental home to get a Proper Job. Justice will be done. Certainly, to many traditional Conservative supporters, such a proposal seems like a great idea. Teach the hoodies a lesson, make their feckless parents pay for their sins in not bringing them up properly. More money will then be freed up and made available to those who have worked hard and deserve the state’s support in their old age. Many of these young people don’t vote, and if they do it is often not for the Conservatives. The youth support base for the party is relatively small, and this overall apathy is often exploited in policy decisions, leaving young people to face the consequences of decisions on their future without any real appreciation of what the realities of that future are.
Blaming young people for unrealistic expectations will not solve our welfare issue. The welfare state in Britain is unsustainable, true. But the move to blame young people, and then leaving older generations to choose between “us and them” in the cut backs is not a solution. If David Cameron’s proposals ever see the light of day in the legislature, then thousands could be left homeless, creating a new and wholly more challenging issue for the government to struggle with. Young people will never leave their home town, struggling to find employment in skilled or unskilled jobs within a specific locality dictated by the location of their parents’ home. And, even if they do make enough money to afford rent, how then can they help themselves to move out when there is a housing shortage, rent rates soar above general inflation and no one is building new homes? Even if they were to commute from less expensive areas, with fuel prices also hitting the high notes it is practically pointless trying to save money this way.
Suzanne Moore at the Guardian has written a brilliant comment piece on the issue of turning generations against each other in the face of financial and social hardship. The government has momentarily forgotten that young people will soon be those leading the country. If they want it to be a pathway out of recession on a long term basis, then they need to be prepared to drop this outdated notion of Towerblock Tracey and actually face the realities of a highly ambitious, over-qualified and abandoned generation trying to face up to a life defined by an employment, housing and social crisis not of their making. Of course Cameron’s reforms would cut the deficit, but they would wreak such damage on the economic and social future of our country that any hope of sustainable recovery will be futile.
kitchentablenewsroom
Talkin Bout Ma Generation
Brought up in the boom time of the 1990s and the excesses of a Labour government determined to spend its way to success, you would be forgive for thinking that young people have a distorted idea of personal entitlement and individual opportunity. Young people were told that their education would be a lower price, more widely accessible and provide them with the necessary tools to secure a highly paid and exciting job at the end of the day. We would never be homeless, we would be supported in our every endeavour, and we would not be left, abandoned and struggling to survive in our rich and noble democracy. In reality, there are so few jobs that a quarter of 16-25 year olds are unemployed. In reality, more and more young people are turning to drug abuse, violence and petty crime as a way to pass the time. In reality, thousands of young people are facing the reality of homelessness and lives defined not by wealth of opportunity, but by terrible poverty and abandonment.
Listening in shock and awe to David Cameron’s proposals for the new Conservative manifesto, I was struck by the deliberate targetting of the younger generations. The Prime Minister proposed taking housing benefit away from under-25 year olds and scrapping employment benefits for under-21s, citing a “culture of entitlement” that had led young people to believe they should be paid by the state to have many babies and live in a nice house in a good area without doing a day’s real work. These reforms would save the government hundreds of millions of pounds in welfare costs each year, should the cost of welfare remain static. When challenged on where these young people would go when they had lost tehir housing benefits, the Prime Minister glibly replied that they should just move back in with their parents until they could afford to move out permanently. The under 21s who would lose employment benefits should enter into training schemes or further education, or live with their parents and be supported by them. Not only would this put pressure on parents to encourage their children to go into employment and further education, but it may also keep young people at home and in school for longer. It would also remove all expectation that leaving home and starting a family you could not personally afford to support should be a viable option.
The reality, however, is not so rosy. Expecting people under the age of 25 to just move back into the parental nest creates pressure upon the individual and their family. Perhaps the individual’s parents are dead. Perhaps they had lived with a legal guardian or foster care organisation. Maybe they have a terrible relationship with their parents. And the parents themselves: what happens if they refuse? Perhaps they can’t afford to keep their child in adulthood; they may never have had a steady job themselves, or may even have become the latest casualty of the recession. Perhaps in the intervening time between the child leaving and then being forced to return, the parents have sold the family home and moved to a smaller one bedroom apartment, with no physical space available to keep another adult in. Hell, maybe they went to France to become onion farmers. Whatever the reason, the government cannto seriously expect under-25s who cannot afford to pay rent or a mortgage to automatically be able to move home.
It sounds great though, doesn’t it? Stop those 19 year old beenfit scroungers having babies to get more cash and put them back in the parental home to get a Proper Job. Justice will be done. Certainly, to many traditional Conservative supporters, such a proposal seems like a great idea. Teach the hoodies a lesson, make their feckless parents pay for their sins in not bringing them up properly. More money will then be freed up and made available to those who have worked hard and deserve the state’s support in their old age. Many of these young people don’t vote, and if they do it is often not for the Conservatives. The youth support base for the party is relatively small, and this overall apathy is often exploited in policy decisions, leaving young people to face the consequences of decisions on their future without any real appreciation of what the realities of that future are.
Blaming young people for unrealistic expectations will not solve our welfare issue. The welfare state in Britain is unsustainable, true. But the move to blame young people, and then leaving older generations to choose between “us and them” in the cut backs is not a solution. If David Cameron’s proposals ever see the light of day in the legislature, then thousands could be left homeless, creating a new and wholly more challenging issue for the government to struggle with. Young people will never leave their home town, struggling to find employment in skilled or unskilled jobs within a specific locality dictated by the location of their parents’ home. And, even if they do make enough money to afford rent, how then can they help themselves to move out when there is a housing shortage, rent rates soar above general inflation and no one is building new homes? Even if they were to commute from less expensive areas, with fuel prices also hitting the high notes it is practically pointless trying to save money this way.
Suzanne Moore at the Guardian has written a brilliant comment piece on the issue of turning generations against each other in the face of financial and social hardship. The government has momentarily forgotten that young people will soon be those leading the country. If they want it to be a pathway out of recession on a long term basis, then they need to be prepared to drop this outdated notion of Towerblock Tracey and actually face the realities of a highly ambitious, over-qualified and abandoned generation trying to face up to a life defined by an employment, housing and social crisis not of their making. Of course Cameron’s reforms would cut the deficit, but they would wreak such damage on the economic and social future of our country that any hope of sustainable recovery will be futile.
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