Economically the young are suffering most in this crisis – and they need special support coming out of it

Ignore the crocodile tears of those who weep for the burden of the public borrowing on young people while simultaneously pushing for spending cuts that harm their future economic prospects

From a health perspective the coronavirus pandemic has been savage to the old. From an economic perspective it’s been most cruel to the young.

Mortality data confirms a vanishingly small risk presented by Covid-19 to those aged under 30 and a steep rise in the coronavirus’s lethality for those age 60 and upwards.

But the economic data is now coming through that shows just how clearly younger people are bearing the brunt of the lockdown to keep the virus from spreading.

A survey by the Resolution Foundation has found that 18-34-year-olds are more likely to have been made redundant, to have been furloughed or to have lost paid hours in the crisis than older workers.

For 18-24-year-olds more than a third have suffered in this way, compared with less than a fifth of, for example, 50-54-year-olds.

The official data is not yet available, but expect youth unemployment to soar in the coming months, as it invariably does in recessions.

A case of “last in, first out” age discrimination? Perhaps, to some extent.

But it’s more likely to be driven by bad luck. Separate research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown workers under the age of 25 were two and half times more likely to have been working in hotels, pubs and shops – places that have been forced to shut entirely due to the lockdown.

But, as younger people won’t need reminding, they have already been suffering more than their fair share of bad economic luck in recent years.

Average wages fell more steeply for those in their 20s in the years following the financial crisis than for any other wage group.

The home ownership rate of those aged between 25 and 34 has fallen from around 40 per cent to just 26 per cent in a decade and more than a million more young adults are living with their parents than at the turn of the millennium.

None of the facts about intergenerational inequality that were well established as we entered this pandemic will have been improved by it – indeed, they are likely to be exacerbated.

If the recovery from this historic slump is weak it will be the job opportunities of new entrants to the labour market – younger people – which will suffer the most. And a spell of unemployment early in a working life leaves all sorts of lasting scars.

So how do we stop an economic disaster for young people turning into a catastrophe?

In truth the appropriate policy prescription urged by most experts before the crisis is broadly unchanged.

We need a much greater public investment in training for young people, with a particular focus on the half who do not go to university.

It is these same neglected workers – the leisure centre employee, the pub staff – who have been hit especially hard by the lockdown.

The malfunctioning apprenticeship levy system needs to be sorted – with extreme urgency – by ministers, and employers need to wake up to their responsibilities on this front.

When it comes to housing the best way to help this group is to build vastly more social housing and to reverse cuts to housing benefit.

And what about taxation? How to approach tackling the public debt that will be accumulated by this crisis in way that protects those who have suffered the most?

The first thing is to learn the lessons from the aftermath of the financial crisis and premature austerity. The priority of the government should be ensuring the sustainable vigour of the economy rather than bringing down the debt.

Ignore the crocodile tears of those who weep for the burden of the public borrowing on young people while simultaneously pushing for spending cuts that reduce their incomes and harm their future economic prospects.

That said, we should remember that we went into this crisis with a long-term structural problem in the public finances.

The ageing profile of the population was putting serious upward pressure on demands for health and social care spending and we were not, collectively, paying enough tax to meet that pressure, resulting in misery for many frail older people lacking adequate support.

Nothing will have changed on that front post-pandemic.

So who should pay the extra tax to sort this out? The case for a progressive tax on housing wealth, the majority of which is in the hands of older generations, was already strong before the crisis. It’s now overwhelming.

Long-term fiscally unsustainable transfers to older generations, regardless of their wealth – the free TV licences, the bus passes, the fuel allowances, the whole “triple lock” pensions guarantee – should also be dispensed with sooner rather than later.

Get rid of the stupidly generous 25 per cent tax-free lump allowance when people draw down their private pension forthwith.

It’s time to require workers who happen to have passed age 65 to pay national insurance contributions on their earnings, just like everyone else.

And since wealthy older people tend to have higher incomes, increases in income tax are also perfectly consistent with a more inter-generationally equitable post-corona taxation settlement.

Economically, we’ve not been all in it together in this crisis. It’s vital that ministers recognise that fact – and act accordingly – as we emerge from it.