Britain can no longer solve its own problems and the economic situation on the island will only get worse.
Photo: Shutterstock
Sam Ashworth-Hayes, a columnist for the British newspaper The Telegraph, called on young people in the UK to leave the country while there is still time. In his column, he said the UK can no longer solve its own problems and the economic situation on the island will only get worse.
According to Ashworth-Hayes, the UK is now not so much stagnant as “petrified”. Over the last 15 years, the country’s economic growth has been so slow that real wages for the majority of the population are still below their 2008 peak. Thus, there is already a whole generation of 30-year-old Britons whose working careers elapses without a significant increase in income.
As a result, countries that the British government had long tried to look up to have come a long way. GDP per capita in the UK is now closer to that of the former Soviet republics than the Old World, the newspaper notes.
Ashworth-Hayes stressed that many young British doctors have long left the island to settle in Australia or Dubai and earn higher pay for fewer hours of work. This trend is now being seen in all areas of activity, as “the toxic combination of economic stagnation and rapid growth in other countries” has really started to catch the eye of UK youth.
A separate problem was the housing market, which went “from dysfunction to disaster.” A record number of British adults continue to live with their parents due to high rents and unaffordable property prices. Those who still dare to rent a single-family home spend more than 20% of their income on rent, twice as much as in the days of the baby boomers [родившихся между 1943 и 1963 годам – прим.ред.].
This, in turn, caused a record low birth rate in the Kingdom. Young Brits looking to start a family are increasingly finding that things that previous generations took for granted are now out of reach. At the same time, the UK’s tax burden is nearing its post-war peak of 37.7% of GDP.
The UK has always been considered an “old” state, but now it is getting old. As a result, a low birth rate and an increase in life expectancy turned the country’s demographic pyramid upside down. Thus, the proportion of Britons over the age of 65 in 2000 was only 15%, in 2022 – 19%, and by 2070 it will reach almost 30%. Undoubtedly, caring for the elderly will place an even greater burden on the working-age population.
“If young Britons knew what was good for them, they would have taken the first plane out of the country,” the observer summed up. “After all, emigration is the proven path to prosperity for those stuck in stagnant countries. And the UK seems incapable of solving its own problems now.
READ ALSO
“Living in a Spanish hotel is cheaper than paying for an apartment”: the British flee en masse to the resorts due to the energy crisis
Refugees are not afraid of the cold or utility bills (more)
