What could we do to improves the lives of young brits?

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drivelhead@reddit

Tax the rich much much more.

Tax companies properly.

Free education.

Basic Income.

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Because driving investment and wealth creators out of the country will help improve anyone’s quality of life. The recent changes to employer NI have shown that further attempts to tax companies will reduce the number of jobs available, especially for young people.

We already have a free education system up to 18 with plenty of support available for adult learning for those who wish to look for it.

A basic income, just like increases to the minimum wage drives inflation without generating growth to enable companies to increase worker salaries.

drivelhead@reddit

Not at all.

I earn well above the median and believe that I should have to pay more tax.

I already benefited from a free university education. I think that young people today should get what I had. I'd prefer it if they had even better than me.

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gagagagaNope@reddit

'I want to pay more tax, honest guv'

But you never have, have you? All those years you could have sent a cheque to the treasury but somehow forgot.

Plenty of time to demand the 'rich' and companies (ie, other people's pensions and work) be taxed more.

Which bit of the public sector are you in?

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Puzzled-Job9556@reddit

Tax the rich much much more.

What are you proposing?

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Jaraxo@reddit

Most likely more tax on anyone earning more than £43k/year.

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Asoxus@reddit

The people that say 'tax the rich more' never seem to acknowledge that the top 1% of earners contribute 30% of all income tax revenue.

Tax corporations properly, sure, you can try that, but then they'll just withdraw from your market.

Some proper A level level thinking from these people.

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Puzzled-Job9556@reddit

It's what it always seems to be. The question never really gets answered as the type of person who makes the statement has no real economic understanding.

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gagagagaNope@reddit

It's always rich = anybody with more than me.

It's just basic spite and envy. Pure nastiness.

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drivelhead@reddit

What I would like almost certainly isn't practically possible.

Ideally I would like to tax worldwide assets (cash, stocks, property, etc) and abolish most other personal taxes, such as income tax and VAT.

I'd also like to tax everyone living in the UK and all UK citizens worldwide. Having British citizenship is a privilege and grants you a number of rights that all citizens should pay for.

As I said, not possible :-)

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vishbar@reddit

Wow—so you would essentially remove the right of normal working class Brits to live abroad? They’d face double taxation?

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drivelhead@reddit

As a working class Brit who lives abroad, no.

I'm the only person in my 10+ size group of school pals who went to uni...I'm the lowest earner.

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idontlikemondays321@reddit

Me too. The biggest earner dropped out of school pre-GCSEs and created their own business

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OriginalSquare4832@reddit

Selling muck

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NobleRotter@reddit

Our group is the inverse. I'm the only one who didn't go to uni. Everyone else has a degree. A few masters in there and two Doctors.

I'm slowing things down now, but I clearly earned more when full time anyone else. Only one with paid off mortgage. Taking more/nicer holidays etc.

Still sometimes regret not going though - just because society still looks down.

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darcsend_eu@reddit

The vasj majority of the population respects your outcomes not the journey that got you there

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NobleRotter@reddit

Oh yeah, 100% a me issue. I've even considered returning to studies if I take early retirement.

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darcsend_eu@reddit

Get a PHD just to be called Dr.

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Kiardras@reddit

We were basically told you walk out of uni into a £50k job just like that, any other path would be minimum wage for life.

Again, big believer in uni education, but vocational stuff like sparky, plumber, etc is so valuable to society it shouldn't be considered a second class or consolation career

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Soilleir@reddit

Also bring back Adult Education services that have been decimated. Education should not be restricted to one period of life, but an ongoing opportunity that enriches our whole lives. We need to bring back 'education for all' and 'lifelong learning' - and they should be national principals.

Adult Education services that provide opportunities for all workers to learn over thier lifetime should be available across the nation.

Adults should be able to access local classes on a range of subjects: from learning a new language or skill, to exploring a new subject. Pottery; life drawing; drumming; guitar lessons; the lives of 18th century writers; the mathematics of art; furniture restoration; woodwork; metalworking; photography; French; Spanish; German; Mandarin; the work of the English Poets; the history of the British working classes; etc etc etc.

Education for all is a principal that has been lost. Adult education services and centres across the country have closed.

But education is not pointless - a worker learning a new language can improve business access to other markets. A friend is currently paying to learn Madarin online because his company works with Chinese bussiness and they're at a disadvantage negotiating when the Chinese company speaks English, but the British company doesn't speak Madarin.

Learning new skills, socialising and having the opportunity to think differently or meet people of different backgrounds can improve social cohesion, reduce isolation, improve employment opportunities, improve metal health, increase the skills base, and widen social networks. All of which improve society and support NHS services.

Yes there are online opportunities, but sitting at home watching a video or reading a set text doesn't reduce isolation, build confidence in social situations, or expand social networks. Online leanring also doesn't help people living in flats or small houses to learn skills that require specialist equipment that costs money and takes up space to use/store.

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Quelly0@reddit

Yes. Also so many people want to change career around ~40yrs old. But it can be difficult or expensive, depending on what you're switching from and to. We could have a vastly more nimble workforce if retraining opportunities were easier and cheaper for adults! It's win-win: people would feel more satisfied after becoming unstuck from whatever wasn't fulfilling them, and we'd have lots of cross fertilisation of ideas and skills injected into sectors as people move. I reckon it could really benefit the economy, government income, and therefore and all of us.

Current education seems to be based on the idea that we pick a career for life as teenagers and everything thereafter is a linear progression that we're stuck with That's just not how life and jobs are.

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Soilleir@reddit

Exactly. There are huge benefits to both individuals and to society as whole.

And even if people can't switch career (for whatever reason), or they feel stuck in a job they don't like or has no prospects or doesn't fullfill them, at least they'd have the opportunity to find thier fullfillment outside the workplace.

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ludicrous_socks@reddit

Probably make more money in the trades than most grads do too

Anecdotal obviously, but when I left uni all grad jobs were like £20-£25k p/a... I'm not sure how long it takes to qualify as a sparky, but it feels like it's probably comparable to a uni course, and nigh on guaranteed work after too

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xerker@reddit

I read a stat that graduate job earnings haven't changed in something like 20 years now, literally.

Back in the noughties you'd get a job for, say, £25k out of uni well 20 years later it's still £25k. After inflation, that's a shade over half as much.

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lionmoose@reddit

It's not the other way around on average (there may be certain courses and fees are higher) but graduate premia definitely still exist

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luckless666@reddit

100% - grads earn a third more than non grads by age 31 on average. Over a lifetime, men earn over £170k more and women earn £250k more. Both those figures cover the average debt several times over.

I took a early years nvq then an apprenticeship, where I was on £60-£75 for 4 years. I now earn more than my mate who did do uni in the same field (ish) and he has a 30k dept to pay to.

The governments obsession that uni is for all is damaging a generation and forcing them all to start working life with one foot already on their heads holding them down.

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LushHappyPie@reddit

I imagine the other end is similarly skewed by rich kids being funnelled through university into high-paying roles through nepotism or corruption.

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eggs_and_ham_i_am@reddit

Oh for sure, but there's a lot less super high earners that will pull up the sum by a significant amount (called the 1% club for a reason) Then there are minimum wage and unemployed folks pulling down the wage average of the people that didn't go.

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dianthuspetals@reddit

At A Levels options evening we had a presentation showing how much you’d earn depending on level of education. As kids you just see the money, even when your parents were telling you the world doesn’t work that way. That was back in 2010 for me, so hopefully things will have changed by now.

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ExoticExchange@reddit

No it isn’t. University educated people on average make more money and are in less deprived quintiles. The data remains clear on that.

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Tacklestiffener@reddit

should be free to study whatever the hell they want,

I disagree. Free should be available for subjects like STEM that can benefit the country. Some university courses are ludicrous. I know someone with a degree in Peace Studies.

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PrincessPK475@reddit

I graduated in STEM... With a first class Hons.... I make £34k a year. Pound for pound I'm earning not far off what I was as a 17 year old in a call centre back in the 00's.

I was at school during that period too. In a twist of fate I left a really poor performing secondary school - where I was a very high achiever- and joined a really good sixth form - where I was a pretty average achiever - and while I was there I lost a lot of drive and impetus and ended up deciding not to go to uni.

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prankishink@reddit

Ours gave the opposite advice. A bit like the career advice recently given by Bob Mortimer to David Mitchell in Last One Laughing series 2 :-)

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Superspark76@reddit

I was the same, we were told construction is for losers and stupid people. I requalified as an electrician later in life and wish I'd been advised properly in school, most trades are better paid and require more skills and education than a lot of the other career paths we had been steered towards.

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Fantastic-Dingo-5806@reddit

Yeah I never did it and got into tech and am well paid so, not so unlucky, but if I had another go at life I'd go down the trade route.

Yeah I run a small software company now and I took on a trainee dev. He had a few Python hobby projects on GitHub but that was about it experience wise.

The key thing though was his attitude. He researched things before the interview. The (short) take home assignment was not the best of the bunch submitted but the key thing was that when we chatted about the code he was super reflective and we had a genuine discussion about the pros and cons of various things. It was clear he was passionate about it. I was already going to offer him the job but before I got chance to call him with the news he'd actually made commits on GitHub addressing the stuff we discussed at interview.

I was actually initially hiring for an experienced junior dev or a mid level dev, but took him on instead because frankly he can learn the technical stuff if I give him a training budget and time off, but changing attitudes is much more difficult!

He has since been promoted to a junior dev and paid more than the going rate. He's on track for a promotion to a 'mid weight' role in October though he doesn't know it yet. All in the space of 3 years.

Couldn't ask for a better dev.

We just have a business risk around AI now but I'm working on a plan for that.

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SignificanceSame9452@reddit

As someone who was the "trainee dev" in your story, a huge THANK YOU for having faith in someone with little experience!!!

I am so grateful to my first employer for having the same faith in me. I was passionate but my only experience was some home automation stuff with Python and the Twitter API (just goofing around really). Now I am (although still young) 7 years in the industry and I LOVE it. They hired me because of my character and passion for learning.

I still have a great friendship with my former colleagues, even though I've moved on from there - those friendships last a lifetime.

It sounds like you know what you're doing, my main tip would be to nurture that passion well and it will pay off! I worked for my first employer for 6 of those 7 years, only moving because the company got a lot larger, and I was being severely underpaid by that point (I think I skilled up way faster than they would ever increase my pay).

But I'm so happy to hear that this still happens - we cannot stop hiring juniors because of AI. I guess that would be my second tip, encourage the dev to learn as much as possible WITHOUT AI.

Although I use it frequently now, I learnt 98% of what I know before AI came around, and learning this way gives you a good feeling for how well to judge the AI's output. It's very useful, but in the hands of someone without enough experience to know better, it could be misleading.

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PolarLocalCallingSvc@reddit

Yeah pay is a bit of a weird point when it's your own business and it's such a small company.

He is currently paid well above the market rate for a junior dev and assuming I promote him later on the year he'll be on around £55k plus benefits, in rural Scotland, as a first year medium weight dev. I think that's fair and hope to give him more pay rises as he gains experience etc. But naturally, even subconsciously, I know that anything he's paid eats into my own income because I have 3 employees and don't take in millions. I hope that the training budget, practically unlimited dev environment spend, flexible working etc makes up for not paying Microsoft salaries. I'm not Alan Sugar though so I'm learning this as I go.

But yeah I do think it's important to bring people in and train them up. Not everybody needs a university degree. It does help with CV filtering if you do but I try and look beyond it a bit.

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I would add to this “really good careers advice in general”. I got absolutely zero careers advice at school and it lead to me having no idea what I wanted to do for years after I left school. Also, an explainer on which jobs are the best paid and how to get there. And an idea of what various jobs are like. And a clear plan of how to get there.

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the only metric they have access too is how many former students went to uni the next year. I agree, most of us weren't offered a choice, careers advisor at our school only ever talked about university, even though for 50% of us it wasn't the right choice.

I mean, we could dump RE, as fairy stories have no place in the 21st century.

Or dump history, cause no one seems to care about learning how the nazis took power and how to not let it happen again.

OK, so being slightly facetious.

But RE when I was at school offered no tangible benefit that couldn't have been included in History.

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BrightonTeacher@reddit

RE, in most schools, is just an opportunity to learn about cultures other than our own. You learn to debate, entertain ideas (often not religious) that are not your own and put forth arguments.

Yep totally. In this thread a lot of things seem to be "I wish teachers taught me how to do taxes, how public transport works, opening a bank account etc"

This is half the problem. Parents are useless and everyone expects to be told exactly how to do stuff and initiative is an after thought.

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AzzTheMan@reddit

A lot of parents don't know how things work. They were never taught so just fumble through.

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AnonymousGimp@reddit

And if I listened to my parents, I'd think that getting 0.1% interest in the bank is good

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AzzTheMan@reddit

Exactly. I was raised in a very working class household, and we were taught to get a job and pay your bills. Nothing about how it all works or how to try and make things better

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BingeLurker@reddit

My parents were rubbish with money, and when I was 18-21 I was too.

Nit_not@reddit

I get the sentiment but think we put too much pressure on schools to do everything for young people, they can't fully cover for bad parenting. Also there is so much of this information freely available online, moneysaving expert should be required reading for all young people.

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Vladamir_pootinn@reddit

You live in the generation of growing up with the entire knowledge of human existence in your pocket… I think you can work out how to get the bus yourself…

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darcsend_eu@reddit

It's the same as when my family played Scrabble. My mum would get the dictionary to check her large words. I wouldn't.

We only use your phones to pursue knowledge because we have the skills to go out and research.

I delivered skill work to young adults who left the care system recently and they were shocked to find out that you could Google "how do I top up my gas card."

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mancfester@reddit

There has to be some level of personal accountability. At least to the minimum level of Google something they want to know. This doesn’t need taught

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Impressive_Sock1296@reddit

That was an example, stop pedanting.

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Vladamir_pootinn@reddit

That was the example you chose to give though.. pedantic isn’t a verb… well it’s not even a word… you can BE PEDANTIC..

1 students need to be taught the subject and not taught to pass the exam. Soang people I know who have degrees who have barely more then a surface level grasp of their subject

2 while people see it as an issue I think it's a plus. Germany has different levels of school tailored to specific needs/criteria's would help here. Some are academic, some adnt but just because you are not doesn't mean getting a education which favour trade work is bad, if anything it's a better use of their skill. To many lessons these days are disruptive because we try and accommodate everyone that the result is most people are being failed.

3 there are no real third spaces left outside of sports activities. Youth centres, clubs, places to go hang out as a kid/teen just don't really exist like they used to

4 better wrap around care for parents. Yes itnsucks if the kid is in wrap around care a lot but modern society demands it. However care patterns often don't resulting in people having to give up or change jobs or hours to accommodate

5 in addition to the above it used to be more common for people to be able to part time. While we have had a period of WFH which is trying to be eroded, no one has don't anything about the death of part time work

6 school lunches. They used to be bad, then Jamie Oliver got involved, people hated him but quality got better, now food is even worse than when I went.

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emjayo@reddit

Make uni free if you finish a teaching/nursing degree and complete a set number of years on the job.

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geekroick@reddit

Stop making 'pull the ladder up behind us after we get on the helicopter' type decisions?

We're probably about 30 years too late for that tbh

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Maturius@reddit

In fairness, 40 is an older millennial

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I get that things are harder than they have been in the recent past, but nobody is coming riding along on a white horse to save you. You've got to make the best of what you've got, not fawn after a world that doesn't exist.

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jiggjuggj0gg@reddit

So don’t be surprised when every productive young person leaves because there is nothing for them here.

Thai ridiculous bootstrap mentality has to stop. It only seems to apply to shafted young people. Can’t possibly tell elderly people in their million pound homes that they need to ‘make the most of what they’ve got’ and deal with not getting the triple lock, free social care, or fuel allowance, but we can keep telling young people that their lot in life is a cramped mouldy house share miles from anywhere they know because its all they can afford and ‘that’s life’.

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Effective_Topic_4728@reddit

You're misinterpreting what I've said. Things are tough, I don't deny that. But no political party is going to sweep into power and overhaul the system in your favour. I'd like to get my student loan written off, but unfortunately that's just not the world we live in.

So you have two options. Complain how shit your situation is, how hopeless everything is and how your life is screwed.

Or

Make the best of what you've got and set yourself on course for a better future.

Given you appear to be taking the first option, specifically, what aims are you hoping to achieve with that outlook?

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jiggjuggj0gg@reddit

Amazing that you see “leaving the country for greener pastures” as “complaining how shit your situation is”, but ok.

Force the boomers to actually retire? Then we can all move up a level

On a serious note, bring back nursing bursary because the shortage will / has reached crisis point, teach them about budgeting, tax, emotional regulation and intelligence, addiction and how it impacts a person and a community and pensions, others have already mentioned housing and solid upbringing from early years

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LopsidedGear8017@reddit

20 year old here so I think I consider myself a “young brit”.

My teachers were some of the most inspirational people I have ever met. I put down every success I have to those wonderful people who changed my life.

Just be present for them. Be present for all their happiness and hardships. The mental health crisis is hitting everyone hard and when I was 15, half my class was severely depressed. I knew multiple people in the year who were sent to psych wards throughout the year. One girl killed herself. Cut your students some slack, be happy, and remind them of the fact there is a world out there.

I always thought I would end up as nothing but I am now a medical student at one of the best unis in the country. All down to the fact they believed in me.

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Main-Issue4366@reddit

Well I'm 15 and me and my friends today were literally sitting at a table on the High Street talking and these random people clearly at least 7-8 years older started spraying us with bubbles so I guess not spraying us with stuff would be a start

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soulsteela@reddit

Stop charging for the higher education we all got for free, put in place some rent controls so people can afford to live in the places they grew up in. Tax the billionaires and end all tax loopholes that keep our country struggling.

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CongealedBeanKingdom@reddit

Stop charging for the higher education we all got for free,

'we'

Who's we?

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soulsteela@reddit

Us old bastards that destroyed the planet enjoying ourselves.

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gagagagaNope@reddit

The present youth are the most hyper-consumptive generation ever. Their consumption is multiples of what older generations had at the time.

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Effective_Topic_4728@reddit

This is Reddit though. The reason the youth of today are so hyper consumptive is because of boomers, billionaires and the triple lock pension.

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Puzzled-Job9556@reddit

end all tax loopholes that keep our country struggling.

Would this include salary sacrifices and ISAs?

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Minimum-Activity3009@reddit

Ok-Camel-8279@reddit

This is not aimed at the OP, more a general thing.
Stop telling them they have it hard. It was waaay harder in the 70s and 80s.

Secondly young people should always be taught that the desire to learn is more important than the stuff they do learn. You gain most of your knowledge post education, nothing I learnt at school as been any use to me and if I didn't realise I needed to drive my own desire to learn how the world works after I left I'd be screwed.

Nothing gets given to you on a plate but you can learn how to find the crockery cupboard and the fridge, it's the desire to do that which makes the difference.

Oh and lastly the real world is not on a screen or in a comments section, it's in front of you - just outside your front door. Go and study it and the wonderful people who are there too.

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Embarrassed-Dig-8180@reddit

As someone who was lucky enough to be able to get a mortgage and buy my own house a few years ago.

YOUR 16 year old has zero idea how the world works?

That’s a YOU problem.

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Teach 16 year olds about mortgages Teenagers pay attention 15 years later The 31 year old remembers everything about mortgages No need to Google "How does a mortgage work" before buying a house

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Romeo-McF@reddit

Technically this is already on the English citizenship curriculum:

income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services, and how public money is raised and spent.

Unfortunately it is normally taught by a non-expert in a lesson than children don't value because it isn't examined and they only have it once or twice a fortnight.

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Consistent_Rich_153@reddit

This is taught. I've taught it for years. I think that because it's in PSHE a lot of students don't think it's important.

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Take all the money raised by inheritance tax and use it to pay everyone in the country a dividend on their 30th birthday.

Could probably raise enough to bung everyone enough for a decent house deposit.

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Scottish_Santa@reddit

I was intrigued by the maths of your idea! Recent figures suggest the government is taking in about £8.5bn a year in inheritance tax and that approximately 900,000-980,000 people turn 30 each year in the UK. So there'd be less than £10k per person to dole out. As the average house price in the UK is approximately £300,000, you'd be looking at a 3% deposit or thereabouts. Not terrible, but not enough to get on the housing ladder without saving.

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shredditorburnit@reddit

What happens if you take it back from people who get a big inheritance later?

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Scottish_Santa@reddit

I'm just a guy with Google and a calculator 😅 T'internet suggests roughly 2% of adults receive an inheritance each year, so clawing back their £9k or whatever wouldn't move the dial. Also, inheritance figures are skewed because some are very small and some are massive. It's suggested the median value is c. £11k. So it wouldn't be fair to remove it from all, as some would end up worse off than people with no inheritance.

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shredditorburnit@reddit

Maybe just let it get to the threshold for paying tax at all, then increase the percentage slightly to account for it.

I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted here, everyone should get a chance to get something going with a small inheritance at some point, and given that some people won't under the current system we should socialise it a bit.

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Working_Bowl@reddit

This is the wrong thinking. What needs to happen is a shift in the whole housing system to free up existing housing. Make moving easier and remove stamp duty. Make it easier and more fluid for people to upsize and (more importantly) downsize. A big issue is empty nesters. Housing should be more dense rather than the horrid developments we have now which are not useful except to prop up one sub-economy. And what might be wildly unpopular - sort out the council housing system. A council house should not be for life, it should be for while it’s needed. It should also be linked to income. Landlords should also be paying more. Owning houses should not be for profit at the expense of someone else. If you wanted to completely overhaul the system, then you need to break the link between housing and inheritance. If you need care and you are living in a house worth £££, then absolutely some of that equity should be considered to use for your care rather than expecting the state and taxes to pay for it.

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insomnimax_99@reddit

This is the wrong thinking.

No it’s not, everything other than building more housing is the wrong thinking. Any solution to the housing crisis that doesn’t involve massive scale housebuilding is just dancing around the problem.

There is a massive, massive housing shortage, especially in and around cities, and shuffling people around won’t change that. The issue is simply one of volume.

The UK actually utilises its existing housing stock pretty well - we have an extremely low rate of unoccupied homes of 1%, and this has been steadily trending down since the early 2000s.

tvthrowaway366@reddit

Yes, you’re right, that is exactly what I’m arguing for and is an explicit quote of what I said, not a gross misrepresentation of the argument I am making

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gagagagaNope@reddit

We don't need to build more houses, the native population of the country (of all colours and religions) is falling.

We need to stop importing 1m people a year that as a group are net takers and triple or quadruple the demand for the homes freed up by the newly dead.

New building is ruining our towns. Breaks between buildings, play fields, open spaces are being built on and completely destroying eylines and spaces that let our towns breathe.

We shouldn't be building dormitories for people who don't already live here.

Net zero immigration, with hugelt selective criteria for those admitted will solve the housing problem overnight.

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restingbitchsocks@reddit

We can’t keep building houses in the most popular places ad infinitum though. It think we should be bolder and make the places where there is plenty of housing more attractive to live in. Move government departments out of London and give businesses incentives to set up in other cities. Why should so many people have to move to London and the south east for the best paying jobs?

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tvthrowaway366@reddit

I agree with you. I’m not from the South East and though I’ve spent periods working there, I’ve never lived there and I resent the fact that so many of my friends have had to move there to find decent work. So on the point of “we shouldn’t be so London centric” we are on the same side.

We should be bolder and try and make other cities more attractive, but ultimately this takes time. You need infrastructure, confidence, and, in my view, more powerful local and regional governments. Developing these should be a long-term goal. At present, the political situation does not favour this. Devolution (in England) is a complete mess and I think it requires a complete overhaul, which does not seem likely in the near future.

ScottyDug@reddit

Everyone talking about careers and housing, I think it needs to start way earlier than that.

Lots of kids get a shitty start in life due to poverty and a rough upbringing. Things like sure start clubs and more support from social work for struggling families. That would need major investment though.

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jiggjuggj0gg@reddit

Good luck with all the “we need to look after our own” lot crying over the free breakfast clubs and removal of the child benefit cap.

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kouroshkeshmiri@reddit

More houses = cheaper rent/ mortgage = Less poverty in the long term.

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whooptheretis@reddit

There will always be poverty, because it's all relative.
If you look at how people are living now compared to 200 years ago, even the poorest have better education, better homes, better heathcare, better food security, better welfare than even the wealthiest did in those times. We've just raised the bar, and as long as we keep raising it, then there will always be those at the bottom.

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luckless666@reddit

Agree it's all relative - even the way the UK government defines of poverty means there's always going to be people classed as in poverty.

a household with an income below 60% of the contemporary median, known as relative low income

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whooptheretis@reddit

Exactly, it's like saying if we gave everyone a tonne of gold. It wouldn't make those people rich, it would make gold worthless.

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luckless666@reddit

They also have an absolute measure, which is based on the above in 2010/11 and adjusted for inflation

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Puzzled-Job9556@reddit

Lots of kids get a shitty start in life due to poverty and a rough upbringing.

Honestly, a bit of tough love. Don't tell average achievers to go to university to do some obscure degree. Teach them the importance of saving and investing, and that means not getting them accustomed to expensive tech and holidays. Drill into them to not have kids too early. Don't give them benefits if they aren't actively looking for work or further education. In harder times, self discipline becomes more important.

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agentorange65@reddit

Re-open social clubs and after school activities

Make leisure centres cheaper to access.

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Dramatic_Prior_9298@reddit

Remember you were a kid once, how that felt, and what stuff you needed help with.

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Affectionate_You_858@reddit

The stats which show graduates out earn non grads includes people who end up in retail, care etc. I would be interested in the stats for uni vs apprenticeship

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Immediate-Escalator@reddit

I would say encouraging curiosity, empathy and critical thinking are really important. When you strip away all of the detailed knowledge that’s imparted at school, those three qualities stand a person in good stead to navigate through life.

skisagooner@reddit

Let me be that guy!

The point isn’t to give people an amount they can live on, but to recognise it’s far more efficient and effective to give money to everyone, than to first discern the deserving - even if it has to mean each getting less.

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mimidaler@reddit

Quality, affordable leisure. Yes they do need to learn about managing money and how the systems around them work but equally they need decent leisure, and it needs to start early on. The youth clubs in my area are very structured and my teenager went to one a few times and said it was boring as they weren’t allowed to just socialise but had to listen to an adult talking for a hour or so first. Swimming pools no longer just have Saturday free swim, it’s structured hours and limited capacity in a building on the outskirts of town whereas it used to be centrally located, all day for £2 and it would be busy. There’s no ice skating, the cinema is more expensive and not a lot on, there is less general stuff put on by the council that isn’t aimed at a niche audience. Half of the shops have closed down and long gone are the days of under 18 disco or under 18 foam party. When I was a teenager the police used to run a summer scheme with multiple activities on each day of the 6 weeks holidays and you could sign up to do them, stuff like kayaking, trips to London, multi sports, cooking, swimming, crafts… every activity you could imagine. I’m not so old that computers and gaming consoles didn’t exist so it’s not a case of this being down to kids being on screens either, it’s because those opportunities just aren’t available to young people now.

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GL17CH3D_R4M_5YN7H@reddit

We need to build places for kids to hang out again. Parks are all for young children nowadays and there's not many teenage group places or events to attend anymore.

I want them to have experiences together, to learn and socialise in person, because it's sad to see kids exist almost entirely online together. Their mental health being worse now that it was in my teens (which was during the emo era full of stigma) concerns me, I've been that kid and I don't want that for any others.

We need to be acknowledging them as whole people, with needs just like adults, but I fear we're going the other way.

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john681611@reddit

Think of anything in your life that was horrible and you'd never do again, and figure out how to remove that. For me:

Exams (So many PTSD nightmares even now). So few jobs are a one-shot, no outside help thing, I dunno what is better, but we should be rid of that.
If a job is in demand, it should be free a uni course all the way to the required qualification (Engineers, doctors, nurses) that includes vocational (Plumbers, sparkies, builders). Charge excessively for courses with little to zero job demand (Egyptology/Politicians :D)
Thoughoughly modernise education, computers and the internet have been in our pockets for years now, Mental maths is dead. Teach how to identify and validate info found online.
Housing, well-end housing for investment, live there 1/3+ of the year or sell up. Ban second houses entirely in high-demand areas. Exponentially increasing taxes for empty houses.
Let kids go outside and explore again (end fortress schools). Make parents legally responsible for kids' crimes (some will be rats)
Usual sort out Taxes, don't let companies pay nothing, Tax the super wealthy who can avoid usual taxation methods by getting loans against theoretical assets (stocks).
Help all the adults who were failed so they don't have to suffer our stupidity.
Something about global warming and not forcing them to live in/tidy up a wasteland.

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Bitter-Policy4645@reddit

Reduce the cost of living by making owning or renting homes cheaper. Reducing demand is the quickest way to achieve that.

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clarkey_jet@reddit

Teach them that it’s okay to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb, rather than half way up a ladder you don’t. Also, it’s okay to take time to figure out which ladder that is.

Talking from personal experience, I did well at GCSEs but went down a specific path with colleague and university. Got burned out in my third year and didn’t hit the grades I was capable of. It took me until my ate 20s to realise that was never the path for me.

After a few years stuck in call centre work not knowing what to do next, I totally switched to a new career at 33. Now I’m 41 and doing an apprenticeship through my work in something I’m both good at and enjoy.

I know so many graduates that never escaped the call centre work because they had no interest in going into a career related to their degrees.

There’s so much pressure in young people to go straight from school, to college, to university before they really know what makes them tick. If in doubt, take a gap year and get a working holiday visa abroad. It’s cliche but travelling and working abroad helps with self-discovery and perspective.

On a separate note, agnostic to any specific subject, teach transferable skills that are resilient to AI and automation.

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BrutalBananaMan@reddit

Introduce a law which limits each individual to one home. People don’t need multiple homes. We don’t need landlords. It’s going to get more difficult for young people to buy a home.

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Chance-Bread-315@reddit

I'd have thought you'd be in a good position to tell us?

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secondincomm@reddit

Build more houses and renewable energy sources.

Prepare them for the outside world.

Bring in people from all walks of life, both successful and unsuccessful to run through the highs and lows of everyday life. Anyone from reformed drug users to self employed business owners, military veterans-anyone with a story to share, whether it’s feel good or it’s a train wreck.

Explain budgets, mortgages, credit cards and the results of debt. Include a chat about day to day expenses and financial priorities (I.e. what you need rather than what you want)

Lessons that Actions have consequences, with an explanation of brain development in young people. I took stupid risks when I was young and I’m surprised I survived half of them.

Explain that it’s fine to have dreams, but reality can be mundane and unpredictable. Everyone has “I wish I knew what I know now when I was young” moments.

Finally, explain that not everything is black and white. Social media is not your friend and anything you read is not necessarily fact or the full story, rather that it is the perspective of the author, directed by an agenda or even a barefaced lie.

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soondbokie@reddit

Invest in their education. Invest in training. Invest in companies who prioritise education and training. Government to create the conditions where this is way, way more palatable than mass outsourcing.

Decades of outsourcing and over-reliance on consultancy has made our large companies vulnerable and blocked an entire generation from good careers. Fix this and it's a win/win imo.

Also get cash in their pockets and give them reasons to be optimistic.

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allabouttheplants@reddit

It wont help them right now, but I think finance education is vital for young people. Do a budget, spend below your means, invest in a s&s isa long term, look into Sipps, LISAs etc

You dont have to be a high earner, you just need to consistently invest every month and compounding does the rest.

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lifetypo10@reddit

Lucky you. Im a millenial who was born poor and poor I will remain.

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ClacksInTheSky@reddit

We're also the generation that had the rug pulled from us and the social contract shattered.

Gen-Z have never been under the illusion that working hard and making sacrifices will pay off, and it shows in their admirable attitude to work these days.

2008 rolls around and tuition fees go up, access to youth support, jobs, educational maintenance funds, university grants and various other bits of the safety net just obliterated and then we were told we're naive and don't know what we're voting for.

That guy thinks I'm saying we had it worse, but I'm saying it's just still the same shit. The stuff affecting kids these days is the same snowball that rolled over us, it's just gotten bigger

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CongealedBeanKingdom@reddit

Exactly. I was moaning about rent and the fact that I'd never get a mortgage and would be working until I died on the job a good 12-15 odd years ago and my middle class colleagues, who were just slightly older, couldn't understand why I couldn't just ask someone in my family for money. They were appalled when I explained to them that I, dear reader, am the 'successful' one in my family because I earn over minimum wage.

But now that these same problems effect middle class young people? Well. Its all brand new and something must be done.

Those of us born on the scrapheap have always known that we are completely fucked. Its just taken the more well off (and I don't mean wealthy) a wee while to catch up.

And now all of us can be fucked together, like a massive poverty organisation.

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ClacksInTheSky@reddit

but I’ve landed on my feet.

Maybe one of the few of us who've managed to buy a house?

I'm in a weird situation where I earn more than both my parents put together, but rent and raising children over the years has meant I've never been able to get on that ladder.

Anyway, I agree, I was just using the opportunity to make a joke.

Put business studies on the KS2/3 curriculum. Help kids to understand how to build careers and do the appropriate administration and marketing.

Start off with helping them to visualize big ideas and then break it into smaller fun sections.

Align different activities it with the rest of their courses (Maths, English (creative writing), Art, History, Geography, Science (product development/evaluation), sociology, sports etc.

Gen Alpha kids will not have an easy ride getting into their first jobs if the school system stays locked in a 1990s/2000s era approach - the world has moved on and different skills are needed in combination.

Pure STEM focus won’t work. It narrows the curriculum and puts the focus onto pass/fail. Because it’s impact is more easily measurable.

What the next decade needs is bringing fun into learning but with a purpose that allows thenchild to find their own space combined with the skills to have the opportunities to set up as sole-traders in that niche.

We’re about to get into a world where manual skills and creative activities might be more in demand and better paid than sitting in a cubicle.

But if the kids don’t learn how to manage the other admin aspects around their skills needed to keep their careers moving, they won’t see the benefit of their labour.

So business studies / entrepreneurial skills really early.

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Killybug@reddit

By encouraging them to move abroad to work instead of being milked dry by a hostile system designed to be stacked against them from the start.

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Marion_Ravenwood@reddit

Teach them about money. How to handle their finances, how tax works, pensions, mortgages, credit scores and investing.

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gwvr47@reddit

Third spaces and properly fund youth sport clubs (or any youth clubs tbh). Kids have little to do outside of school and video games which is leading to people becoming increasingly insular. Sport shouldn't be only the rich get to do it. The benefits are huge, self discipline, motivation, physical activity. Yet we defunded a lot of it because it's "too expensive" and "if people wanted to do it they'd just pay". People haven't got that level of disposable income, and why should parents fork out a huge amount of their kids might not enjoy it.

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OilAdministrative197@reddit

Build more house and limit their sale to young british citizens.

If a group fights for more pay support them, we want a high wage society instead of saying its an outrage a doctor wants £16 per hour.

Just give them a chance. They dont need to apparently know everything prior to the job. They can learn.

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Willthisusernamebe3@reddit

Give them a life to live not to work

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Few_Scientist5381@reddit

National Service or Boot Camps, not obligatory to join military but an option too, for those that might not be up to basic. Also instills a sence of pride and self respect and standards in oneself. Would also like to see this extended to anyone wishing to setup home from foreign climes.

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AgreeableEm@reddit

Scrap the triple lock. The boomer generation have already racked up £3 trillion of debt spending frivolously on themselves, which is quite enough.

Ofc, have some kind of mechanism to prevent genuine hardship for retired people. But not splashing the cash water cannon style to people who are already rich.

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True-Boysenberry5433@reddit

I remember being absolutely bored out of my mind as a teenager and as a result it led me towards bad things.

Everything interesting was too far away or too expensive. In hindsight I would have benefited from a Youth Club or similar like Scouts, cadets, some form of hobby club.

I think we could do a lot more to encourage those things.

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Lost-Actuary-2395@reddit

Limit and restrict social media, especially tiktok.

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bedbathandbebored@reddit

Stop letting monied ppl dictate how things work

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steeperturtle@reddit

If you rent for 5 years with an estate agent and pay full rent and never miss a payment (proof), you get access to 100% mortgages when want to purchase a property.

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Affectionate_Yak6138@reddit

I’m 33 so a lot of the problems I had growing up and hitting adulthood are still the same but one thing that has changed is job opportunities. When I was 16 I had jobs in the local spar, chippy, McDonald’s etc.. all of that seems to have eroded away, can’t get a job in a supermarket freshly out of school anymore. There needs to be more incentive to provide younger people with these type of jobs whilst they finish their education.

Also the obvious: - Help with housing costs, whether that’s specific houses for first time buyers at lower prices are some better form of help to buy, I don’t know. - More practical careers advice rather than pushing everyone into college and university, the trades are good options and very well paid. All we ever did in careers lessons at school was watch videos. In college they just helped us write university applications because it was good for their statistics. - Better loans for those that do access university, it’s a myth that our university costs and loans are good value, we have one of the most expensive average costs in the world and that’s just tuition.

Then there are just the things that would make everyone’s lives easier. Cheaper and more expansive public transport, less reliance on foreign energy so the costs increases don’t ruin our lives every 5 years because some warmonger got bored.

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my-comp-tips@reddit

Spend less time looking at your screen

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steeperturtle@reddit

Stop/restrict multi house ownership. HMOs need a price cap based on the value of the property. Build more houses

Education: Financial education lessons mandatory. Introduction of skilled job training for kids identified at 12/13 where current curriculum isnt working.

Introduction of a CEO/board pay cap relative to lowest paid worker in a business.

Major brands have to publish costs to justify price of product so it is transparent if they are adding a premium price for name (which is fine if they want to) E.G. Nike makes tshirt, cost to make £3 + £57 premium as has a tick.

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JohnCasey3306@reddit

Government to invest in high-quality, well-paid apprenticeships that impart knowledge and skills that are actually valuable to employers. Employers and government to split the cost -- free to the apprentice.

Culturally we should then lean into the idea of high-skilled apprenticeships over and above the current emphasis on degrees -- a great majority of which are entirely vacuous, certainly no value for employers.

There is no longer any value in just 'being a graduate'; doing a degree for the sake of doing a degree because you don't know what else to do is no longer a wise strategy with any return on that investment ... 50% of school leavers now go on to higher education -- successive governments didn't achieve that by increasing the ability of school leavers; they did it by lowering the standard of higher education.

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