Property News · February 10, 2018

It is fair to blame older people for the housing crisis?


The reaction to our column on a pensioner living on £18,000 a year in London revealed deep anger among younger workersShould a 78-year-old woman who lives frugally and buys her clothes in charity shops really be the target of so much bile? Last week in our How I Spend It column, we featured a pensioner living on £18,000 a year in London. The reporter who interviewed her told me she was a “remarkably positive person with an infectious appetite for life”. And her income is by no means unusual. The average gross income of a single pensioner in the UK was £16,952 a year in 2015-16. In London it was £19,968. Even adjusting for the fact that the average figure is distorted by some very high earners, an £18,000 income hardly qualifies her as living in the lap of luxury.Yet the response on the Guardian website, Facebook and Twitter was astounding. Much of the personal abuse we would have deleted off the Guardian’s web pages (we didn’t open it to comments), but we don’t control Facebook or Twitter. But if you put aside the trolls, what the response reveals is the deep anger among younger workers over the hand they have been dealt in life. Continue reading…

Source : theguardian.com
Read more…It is fair to blame older people for the housing crisis?

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