Millennials Should Receive ‘Citizen’s Inheritance’ at Age 25 to Reduce Baby Boomer Wealth Gap, Report Says
Millennials and Generation X should receive a one-time £10,000 “citizen’s inheritance” at age 25 to boost young people’s economic prospects and mend their “broken” link with aging baby boomers, a new U.K. report says.
The £10,000 investment—or a little more than $13,500—would be acquired by the British government from tax hikes on pensioners and would seek to address a widening divide in living standards between young and old people. The Resolution Foundation report proposed mandatory stipulations that the one-off payments must go to young citizens’ education, a home, a pension or a small business. But while critics labeled the move simply a “short-term bribe,” proponents say that amount isn’t even enough to start a business, put a down payment on a house or pay off highly inflated tuition debts.
The Resolution Foundation, a nonpartisan British think tank that researches policy solutions to improve low- to middle-income citizens’ living standards, suggested additional staggered inheritance payments for older Britons starting with people turning 35 in 2020. The report notes that six in 10 U.K. millennials currently in their late 20s would see their wealth nearly doubled by receiving the £10,000 investment from the government. The payment would serve as a stepping stone to reduce a drastic economic imbalance between baby boomers and their younger millennial and Generation Z counterparts.
"Younger generations are bearing more risks and holding fewer assets than their predecessors. We need to redress that imbalance if we are to maintain the promise of an asset-owning democracy," reads the report, released Tuesday. "No longer can anyone deny the challenge facing us as a country in maintaining a fair deal between the generations," said Lord David Willetts, a Conservative Party politician who commissioned the report. "If the evidence is so powerful then that means there is an obligation to act."
http://www.newsweek.com/millennials-generation-z-inheritance-income-gap-baby-boomers-resolution-914846