Property owners' £2.3tn windfall 'has created huge inequality gap'

Younger people have been priced out of home ownership as baby boomers have benefited, says Resolution Foundation

A 2.3tn windfall for those lucky enough to own their own homes during the property boom of the 1990s and early 2000s has opened up a deep and widening inequality gap between the generations, a thinktank has warned. Rising house prices that have enriched older generations have priced the young out of home ownership, said the Resolution Foundation, adding that the pattern whereby each generation was wealthier than the previous one had broken down.

In a new report, the thinktank noted that the baby boomers born in the 20 years after the second world war were the big beneficiaries of rapidly rising house prices, but had amassed most of the wealth through no skill of their own. Wealth disparities would have "worrying consequences" for the living standards of younger generations, it added.

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