Ed Conway Profile picture
Feb 6 13 tweets 5 min read
Do you think, on balance, that the young have been selfish or selfless in their conduct during the pandemic?
Still plenty of time left in this admittedly unscientific poll, but already the answer is pretty clear.
And frankly, that’s the way I would have voted too.
Nearly every piece of statistical evidence suggests the young have been remarkably SELFLESS during the pandemic.
Clearly they didn’t face the same health risks as the elderly during the pandemic, but most young people followed the lockdown strictures and rules.
Even when lockdowns end they remained remarkably committed and considerate.
This is an @ONS survey abt behaviour POST lockdowns:
Younger generations already face far greater economic disadvantages than older generations: more student debt, lower real earnings potential at the equivalent stage in their career than their parents, worse mental health outcomes. Covid exacerbated many of these issues…
Young people lost years of face-to-face learning.
They were deprived of the rites of passage other generations have taken for granted.
Yes: covid has been tough for everyone.
But those scars on attainment & mental health tend to last longer for the young.
I find this chart scary.
Then there are the economic scars.
One of the long-standing issues facing younger generations today is how difficult it is to get on the housing ladder. With inflation so high and interest rates now so low, that will potentially push asset prices higher.
That brings me to a pretty astounding statistic.
In the past year, the average house has earned more than the average youngster.
🏠 UK house prices are up by £24,600
💷 Over the same period the average 18 to 29-year-old had medium earnings of £23,250.
The asset divide is widening
The good news for the young is that another form of economic scarring may be less bad than it looked last year.
Economic activity among the young has recovered v fast since last year (blue line here).
Inactivity now much higher among older workers.
Anyway, put it all together and I struggle to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that the young, on balance, behaved selfishly during the pandemic.
Yet here’s the thing.
Last year @BobbyDuffyKings asked the same question I did above in a survey…
kcl.ac.uk/policy-institu…
Here’s what he found.
49% of people said young people had been selfish (vs 31% who said they were selfless)
More strikingly, even young people themselves (millennials, Gen Z etc) agreed, albeit in smaller numbers: more of them voted that the young were “selfish” over “selfless”
What to make of it?
I’m not sure.
I’m quite haunted by it.
Were people more swayed by anecdotes - stories abt parties; long lens pix suggesting no social distancing (eg this from May 2020) - than data?
Are generational stereotypes are more powerful than reality?
Something else?
I’ve written something about this in a piece for The Sunday Times.
Not sure I’m any closer to solving the conundrum above. Not sure of any definitive answers.
But the generational consequences of Covid feels like a seismic issue we need to keep discussing thetimes.co.uk/article/fcca47…
Oh, a @drjennings tweet reminded me I meant to post this chart too - also in my S Times piece and originally from a @JimReid35 report.
Towards the end of this decade millennials and below will dominate G7 electorates.
Will that change things?
And if so, how?

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More from @EdConwaySky

Feb 7
This is a long video - much longer than the @SkyNews explainers I usually make.
But it's about a very big and consequential question - one that deserves consideration:
Is Net Zero and environmental policy responsible for the current energy crisis?
This is my attempt at an answer:
Predictably there are quite a lot of people out there insisting the current rise in prices has nothing to do with net zero policy.
Predictably there are a lot of people out there insisting it’s all or mostly to do with net zero policy.
Predictably, they’re both wrong.
🧵
Let's begin with the big picture, and for the time being let's just look at where we get our electricity from (this being only a fraction of total ENERGY use). In the UK we've reduced our reliance on coal to v low levels. This is an impact of environmental policy. Image
Read 26 tweets
Feb 3
🚨NEW 🚨
Bank of England says UK households must brace themselves for the biggest annual fall in their standard of living since comparable records began three decades ago, as it:
- Raises interest rates to 0.5%
- Says inflation will surpass 7%
- Slashes GDP forecast
According to the Bank’s calculations, real post-tax labour income - perhaps the best measure of standards of living since it accounts for the rising tax burden as well as inflation and earnings - will fall by 2% in 2022
Biggest fall since comparable records began in 1990
The MPC voted 5-4 in favour of raising interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5%. But those four dissenting members wanted a hike to 0.75%.
So households will have to contend with higher borrowing costs as well as higher taxes, energy, goods and services prices.
Read 8 tweets
Feb 3
Landmark day in the cost of living crisis:
- Ofgem to confirm energy bills will go up by £hundreds from Apr
- @bankofengland expected to raise interest rates further
- New forecasts showing inflation to hit highest level since early ‘90s
- Chancellor to step in with £££ measures
According to my calculations, the rise in the energy price cap to around £2k will push up the energy bill burden (eg share of average household spending going on heat/power) to the highest level since the late 1980s:
If they go up further later this yr, as is widely expected, the energy bill burden gets to the highest level since at least the 1970s. Possibly even earlier. Eg in terms of the immediate domestic impact this could be worse than any modern energy crisis
Read 9 tweets
Jan 19
NEW: UK benchmark inflation rate rises to highest level since 1992. Consumer Prices Index hit 5.4% in Dec, up from 5.1% in Nov and way above @bankofengland 2% target ons.gov.uk/economy/inflat…
Two questions: first, how high will CPI get in the coming months? @bankofengland said 6% but many economists think 7%.
Second, how soon does BoE raise int rates again? Could be as soon as next meeting in Feb (prob up from 0.25% to 0.5% so still v v low by historical standards)
The point here (and this can't be emphasised enough) is that this 30yr high in inflation is happening BEFORE the impact of a record increase in energy bills which, as I ran through in this thread last night, will squeeze households even further
Read 5 tweets
Jan 18
THREAD: Could the current energy crisis be even worse than the 1970s oil price shock? Given the legendary status of that event it might seem like a preposterous question. But we’ve crunched the numbers on this and they’re not pretty…
Before we get to the data it’s perhaps worth splitting up the 1970s comparison into two parts: first, the financial impact on households.
Second, the impact on the wider economy: shutdowns, three days weeks and so on. Let’s deal with household finances first.
It so happens the UK has an excellent set of statistics on what the “average” household spends its money on each year. £588 a week Everything from restaurants, culture, food/drink, mortgage payments, council tax, income tax and, of course energy bills: a quick guided tour here:
Read 17 tweets
Jan 12
Back in 2014 the UK population was projected to be closing in on 75m by 2040.
Latest projections, released today, suggest we’ll have barely more than 70m people by then.
This is a big change.
Some will argue it’s good news. Others bad.
Either way, it’s enormously consequential.
According to the latest official population projections, the UK’s total fertility rate is now 1.59 (long term average of children per woman).
Down from 1.78 in 2018. BIG drop taking it down from comfortably above the OECD avg to below it (tho OECD avg will prob also fall too).
Blimey.
While overall UK population is projected to rise for the foreseeable future, @ONS projections say the Scottish population has now nearly peaked and will be falling quite rapidly by the middle of the century.
Whether this turns out to be right or not, it’s quite a chart.
Read 4 tweets

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