Labour minister: Life is s**t for young people
A Labour minister has offered a candid assessment of life in the UK in reaction to a news story about the costs associated with housing and raising children.
In a post on X, Josh Simons, the parliamentary secretary for the Cabinet Office who co-founded the Labour Growth Group, said life for young adults wanting to have kids but struggling with personal finances was “s**t”.
Simons said well-educated 20 to 40-year-olds found it “IMPOSSIBLE” to both save more to buy a home and be able to spend more on having children.
He linked to a news story in The Times suggesting that raising a child costs parents almost £250,000 in the first 18 years of someone’s life.
Analysis from the investment platform Moneyfarm suggested that parents spend around £65,016 on their children when they are aged between 15 and 18-years old.
In his post, Simons said birth rate was a “BIG problem” that required more attention, adding that he “can vouch” for cost difficulties as someone who is an MP and holds a PhD.
The fertility rate in the UK dropped to a record low in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics, with women expected to have 1.41 children.
The fall represented a small decline from a rate of 1.42 in 2023, with fertility rates dropping most among those aged between 25 and 29.
Labour decisions hit young people
Meanwhile, decisions made by the Simons’ government colleague Rachel Reeves at the Budget are set to squeeze young professionals’ income over the next five years, according to Morning Wire analysis.
It showed that a graduate earning 50 per cent above the median wage for their age, who turned 30 in 2020, would expect to pay around half as much in tax and student loan repayments as someone also earning 50 per cent above the median wage for their age bracket who turned 30 in 2030 would.
The analysis points to the damaging effects of a further freeze in income tax thresholds until 2031, dragging millions of Brits into higher tax rates.
Separate data compiled by The Economist has shown that people dubbed AVOCADOs, ‘Aggrieved Victims Of Crushing Academic Debt Obligations’, showed people with master’s degrees on a salary of £30,000 face a marginal tax rate of 43 per cent while someone over 66 in the same job would pay 20 per cent.
At the same time, those entering the jobs market from university also face considerable pressures, with graduate hiring weakening at a faster rate than across the UK economy, according to data by Indeed and other jobs platforms.
Economists have widely blamed Labour’s decisions to increase the national living wage and increase employers’ national insurance contributions by £25bn, which is labelled as an employment tax.