Home ownership among 25-to-34-year-olds has dropped to an 80-year low, new report finds
Home ownership rates among young Australians have fallen to their lowest level in eight decades, according to a report by Anglicare Australia, which attributes the decline to tax settings that have long favoured property investors over first-time buyers.
The charitable network's Falling Behind report found that 25-to-34-year-olds are being squeezed out of the market by a combination of rising costs, precarious employment, and a social security system that pays young people less than other cohorts.
"The economic foundations underneath them have shifted," said Kasy Chambers, executive director at Anglicare Australia. "We have a social security system that literally says a young person needs less money to live on simply because of their age."
The maximum fortnightly payment for a single, childless recipient on Youth Allowance currently stands at $677.20 — a rate that sits below the poverty line, JobSeeker, and the aged pension.
Chambers (pictured right) called on the federal government to go further in addressing structural inequality, including a review of how wealth is taxed. "We need to look at taxing wealth the same way as income, because otherwise, what we're seeing is that the wealth gets concentrated," she said at a press conference in Canberra. "Once it gets concentrated, it's very difficult to share that again... $1 is $1 in taxation terms."
Chambers welcomed the government's recent moves to wind back tax concessions on investment income but said more action was needed. "Rent isn't cheaper when you're 23. Groceries aren't cheaper. Electricity isn't cheaper," she pointed out. "Yet young people are expected to survive on the lowest payment in the system. Poverty should not be a rite of passage."
The report points to several compounding pressures facing younger cohorts entering the housing market. "What we can see is that we've got young people coming into a workforce that is more insecure, we can see that we've got increased costs," Chambers said.
"People are studying longer. We know that it takes much longer to save a deposit for a house in terms of the annual average income versus the deposit."
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