Thread by @garius

"Housing costs are not included on the assumption that most pensioners have paid off mortgages."

Fixed that for you, BBC/Loughborough Uni.

(Also, not being funny, but when I retire and don't have to work anymore, 10k a year is going to be my annual bar tab. But that may be just me)

"For the first time in the assessment, Netflix subscriptions and items such as haircuts are included"

Remember kids, the people who do one of the best known pension requirement calculations started factoring in Netflix and chill before they factored in the lack of home-ownership

Now sure, you COULD argue that this is because those nearing retirement now are top end Gen-X, so still more likely to have made it onto the housing ladder.

But getting a house and paying off your mortgage has a 30 year lead in time for most, and you need the housing stock first

So I'd say that starting to worry about the fact that 33% of under 40s, and DROPPING, are homeowners may be a bit of a lurking problem you need to factor into your happy reports and government pushes about "planning for retirement" now. theguardian.com/money/2020/feb…

Because it's not the fact that they can't afford Netflix and Chill that's going to fuck most of the Xennials and below's retirement. It's that if they were retiring now and wanted to live in Walthamstow (say), they'd need an additional 14k a year on top of that 10k.

So your ticking income/pensions bomb of 40yrs time is something you have to address NOW, through increased housing stock and/or social housing availability.

Not something you can solve in 40yrs without suddenly doubling (at least) the national basic pension.

And before some rando pops up and says "well they'll inherit the houses of their parents":

1) That assumes one kid per parental set. Otherwise it's diminishing wealth
2) Boomers are living longer on tight pensions, so are having to cash in house value for income/care

The only bizarre positive is that it's all downhill from pretty much here.

We are at peak UK homeownership, a combo of post-war prosperity and Thatcher's gutting of Social Housing through right to buy.

Boomers are the highest owning property generation the UK has ever seen.

But the utter lack of replacing that social housing stock, combined with a lack of proportionate private stock construction to replace it, means home ownership numbers don't decline gracefully. They drop off a cliff from this point on.

So this isn't a 'frog in a pot' problem.

Whichever evil minion succeeds Johnson is going to face this as a growing issue in their first term, I suspect.

Will be fun seeing how long they can pretend it doesn't exist, or how they half-arse dealing with it.

(Which they will. Because we're in the worst timeline)