Blowing the budget: Why the young have to spend more than the old on essentials

This report investigates spending power across the generations and finds that under-30s’ households:

Have to dedicate the higher proportion of their total weekly expenditure to essentials
Essential items take up 70% of their budget – a 16% increase compared to 2002/3
The bottom quintile of under-30s have on average have to dedicate 77% of their weekly expenditure on essential spending
Discretionary spending by under-30s has collapsed compared to 2002/3:
- Under-30s spend £147/week less on non-essentials (£7,640 a year)
- 30-49 year-olds spend £160/week less on non-essentials (£8,420 a year)
- Over-65s have INCREASED average discretionary spending by £28/week

On intergenerational fairness grounds the non-party-political Intergenerational Foundation calls on the new government to:

Acknowledge the distinct challenges facing young people
Pay benefits according to need rather than age alone
Make the National Living Wage available to all adults
Reduce the tax-take from younger generations by aligning the taxation of earned and unearned income
Rapidly increase housing supply and genuinely affordable social housing stocks for young people
Tie Universal Credit to the cost of a basket of essential goods