Given the high cost pressures on young people, can the Get Britain Working White Paper make a difference?

A woman holding a wallet in her hand. Pictures from: Vitalii Khodzinskyi, Unsplash+

Young people in the UK are experiencing unprecedented cost of living pressures compared to older people.

The cost of living for young people in the UK has risen dramatically in recent years. According to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IF), young people under 30 spend 84 % more on basic necessities than those over 65. They spend 70 % of their total budget on basic necessities, compared with 56 per cent for the over- 65s. At the same time, young people spend £147 a week less on non-essentials than they did 20 years ago - that's over £7,500 a year.

High housing costs are at the root of this. Housing costs are rising faster than wages, and rents are eating into young people's disposable income. Young people spend an average of £80 a week more on housing and fuel costs, with the typical young family spending 28 per cent of their total expenditure on housing alone, up from 20 years ago.

The Labour government has proposed a range of measures to tackle this, including a White Paper on the biggest reform of employment support for a generation, Get Britain Working, backed by £240 million of investment. But challenges remain. 

The White Paper proposes a different approach to the employment support system, including measures to address health issues, reform job centres, provide a youth guarantee, empower local mayors and launch an independent review.

Being the only major economy to have experienced a decline in employment over the past five years. These measures are essential to ease the cost of living pressures on young people. 

But the challenge for the current government is to ensure that these programmes are actually implemented to give young people a better future with less spending pressure.