Children of the 80s half as wealthy as kids of 70s

Thatcher's kids aren't all right – or at least, they are certainly a lot less wealthy.

A new report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that Britons born in the 1980s are only half as wealthy as those born a decade before, making them the "first post-war group not to have higher incomes in early adulthood than those born in the preceding decade", says the BBC.

Taking into account property equity, financial assets and accumulated pensions, minus any debts owed, today's thirtysomethings have an average wealth of £27,000. Ten years ago, their 1970s peers had £53,000.

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Explaining the stark drop, the IFS blamed rapid house price rise in particular. The rise in valuations boosted the wealth of previous generations but have led to declining home ownership rates among those that followed.

Only 40 per cent of those born in the early 1980s are owner-occupiers, compared to at least 55 per cent at that age for those born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, says the Daily Telegraph.

Rents are also higher, with tenants in their late twenties who were born in the 1980s having to pay out 30 per cent, compared to 15 per cent for homeowners.

Compounding the problem, wages have stagnated since the financial crisis and generous financial salary pensions that were offered to older generations have all but disappeared, making it harder for millennials to catch up later.

Laura Gardiner, from the Resolution Foundation think-tank, said this was not only a problem for those directly affected.

She said: "If we have far higher proportions of pensioners renting in years to come this is going to put a far higher cost on the state to support them through things like housing benefit - this is an individual and collective problem."