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Left Behind: A decade of intergenerational unfairness

The Intergenerational Foundation will be 10 years old in 2021 and this research report investigates how young people have fared over the past decade as well as during COVID-19.

Key findings:

• Young people have lived through a decade of intergenerational unfairness, with COVID-19 exacerbating their plight
• Young people have fallen behind in 9 out of 10 policy areas investigated: labour market, housing, higher education, government expenditure, wealth and expenditure, physical and mental health, political representation and the environment
• The research used 31 indicators in order to investigate how the position of young people has changed over the decade and during COVID-19
• The report accuses the government of targeting the young with higher direct and indirect taxation rather than focusing its attention on taxing unearned income and wealth
• Recommendations include: reducing not increasing student fees and debt; investing in children and young people’s mental health; removing the Triple Lock on the state pension; withdrawing free prescriptions from people below State Pension Age (SPA); and increasing national insurance contributions of those people who continue to work after retirement and tend to stay on in the same, well paid professional roles.

We are most grateful to Curtis Banks for supporting this research: