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Thursday, April 11, 2019

The Squeeze

Millennials in advanced economies around the world are being squeezed out of the ranks of the so-called middle class, including in Britain, as pay growth stalls and house prices skyrocket, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It also found that the top 10% of earners held almost half of the total wealth, with the bottom 40% accounting for only 3%.
For every every generation since the baby boom of the 1940s, across 40 major countries, the middle-income group had shrunk and its economic influence weakened.
The 'middle class' was defined as people whose earnings are between 75% and 200% of the median national income. It was now a smaller group than before the financial crisis.
As many as 70% of the baby boomers – born between 1942 and 1964 – were part of the 'middle class' in their 20s, compared with 60% of millennials – born between 1983 and 2002 – at the same point in life.
The situation in Britain has been less pronounced than the OECD average, with 63% of baby boomers, compared to 59% of millennials, the report found that families in the middle-income group had been squeezed.
House prices in the UK over the past two decades have increased by at least 60% more than median incomes, much faster than the OECD average of 50%.

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