A new study which shows chances of a young adult on a middle income owning a home in the UK have more than halved in the past two decades has dominated discussion among our readers today. An interview with Marvel comic’s Black Panther Chadwick Boseman and an idea for a tax on Amazon, Facebook and Apple that could pay for UK universal basic income have also got people talking.
To join in the conversation you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.
Home ownership among young adults has ‘collapsed’, study finds
Readers have been discussing this story based on data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
‘The headlines understate the scale of the problem’
Rapidly declining home ownership of this age group is just one serious indicator of declining standards and increasing inequality. I have four children in this age group all with some graduate debt, worse pay & conditions and relative job security than I experienced at their ages. Two work in the public sector health with 1% pay restraint for seven years. The other two have recently left the UK probably permanently. Despite parental financial help only one has made it into shared home ownership in the UK with another family member.
The headlines understate the scale of the problem with many of the ‘homes’ affordable being small one bed studio flats not a basic family home, or expensive shared ownership schemes.
Combine the home ownership issue with significant decline in pension provisions from employment and the country is creating a poorer quality of life and storing up serious poverty for many in older age.
Why is our government blindly making it worse for younger people at every step?
Meaningful7
‘I keep wondering who can afford the new builds where we live’
I live in Lancashire and within a mile of my own home there are nine new housing development sites and another one in the planning stage. More than 80% of the houses being built are four/five/six bedroom homes; hardly starter homes. Even the two bed houses being built were way above my daughter’s price range, mind you even a two bed Victorian terrace where we live is beyond her at half the price (graduate, minimum wage). I keep wondering who can afford to buy them and how many are actually going to sell.
Just before Christmas one of the sites had a ‘sale’ on some of its lots. I almost hoped gleefully that they don’t sell and it would serve then right. I heard yesterday that they are being marketed in Manchester as commuter homes and the town is gridlocked at rush hour.
Less than half a mile away is a huge brownfield site which as has been there 20 years and despite lots of planning and lovely drawings showing what the development is going to look like, nothing has happened.
JAN_xin58
Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman: ‘Everybody’s minds are opening up’
Ryan Gilbey writes that Marvel’s new superstar knows Hollywood’s first true black blockbuster will open doors. Here are some of your thoughts on the film.
‘It’s so ingrained as a local cultural icon’
I’ve seen this film and, despite whether it’s good or bad, it still reflects a society where the viewership is not used to seeing actors who aren’t white in predominance. It’s a kind of tokenism to set the story in a fictitious, futuristic African country to justify the mostly African origin cast - as if we need an excuse for that casting.
We could be watching all kinds of stories with more racial diversity without having to justify the reasons for that. I think audiences are quite ready to see a much more diverse representation of our people in movies, but it just doesn’t happen much. Let’s hope films like this usher in a era where we can (shock horror) watch a story where 50%-100% of the actors are non-white and it doesn’t raise eyebrows.
Eeteh Rinskram
‘It’s interesting to me how those with privilege experience perceive black visual history’
It’s interesting to me how those with privilege experience perceive black visual history. Those I sat with in a black film society screening of Marshal found it to be far from “dreary”. If anything we were deeply touched by the portrayal and of its significance as more than mere theatre. But then in the land of the privileged those that are privileged get to decide the lens through which things get seen.
dlittlenell1
Tax Amazon, Facebook and Apple more for UK universal pay – study
We look at readers’ reaction to a study suggesting Britain could raise funds for universal basic income by taxing the tech giants.
‘How do they make billions and pay peanuts towards this country?’
A simple 1-2% tax on their sales turnover should do it.
It’s easy for companies to hide profit by shuffling intellectual property about and claim no money is being made in the UK; it’s all being made in Luxembourg or wherever else offers the lowest corporation tax.
But turnover is much harder to hide. How is it that Google, Amazon and Facebook can make billions in revenue in the UK but pay peanuts towards the costs this country has in building an economy on which their activities rely?
eyebrow
‘We get virtually nothing in return’
We give these tech companies huge amounts of personal information, which they then sell on. We get virtually nothing in return so why not have the government tax it?
83years
Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.
