There's a reason why this generation is "worse off" than their parents

Again, the important thing to understand is that market rate is not a set rate. If employers in a sector of the market, as opposed to one employer can’t hire people, then market rate/average pay increases. But paying that new rate is still not underpaying, the market has set the new rate.

If employers in a sector of the market raise wages to attract new talent, that means that they were previously underpaying.

they would never voluntarily raise wages if they could get people through the door on less.

It really doesn’t mean they were underpaid, it means market conditions have changed, if wage doesn’t rise to new market rate, then yes they are underpaid. But my original point, one you seem unable to comprehend, is that if you are paid market rate, you are not being underpaid. P

There is more to it than just getting people though the door for less, there is continuity and the cost of hiring new staff/training them.

Out of interest, if market rate drops and an employee stays on the same wage, would you think they are being overpaid, and should have their wages cut?

My parent bought a brand new house in the 80s on one income and a very low one at that.

I've a much higher income yet such an option is closed off for me.

The OP is absolutely deluded and needs to be challenged. There's never been this level of supply/demand mismatch before.

If, in the OP's rant, everyone could save more money, where would the extra houses come from? We've already massive demand chasing limited supply.

So let me get this right, we have an issue where housing is being priced too high for young people to purchase. We also have an issue with attracting new entrants to the apprenticeships. So the solution is to raise their pay which in turn will increase the price of housing. Square peg and round hole springs to mind.

My question was more about seeing whether you could understand that just because market rate for a specific job dropped, doesn’t mean those who were paid at the higher market rate were being overpaid.

housing should be decommodified

Well it actually comes with planning permission for a new build out the back of it - but it is constrained to incorporate the new build into it. It will cost the buyer more to build with that constraint than it would without it ......... yet the asking is 320k now (down from, as I said, 370k previously when I saw it ......... I googled it and some of the old scraper sites still show it with 370k so I wasn't misremembering). It's basically a rural area about half a mile out from the edge of a village.

The room for movement does not have to come from those actually doing the work. The actual physical construction cost of a house (even counting in the VAT) is 55% of the cost of providing that house as per SCSI 2020 report. That isn't selling price mind you - that is what they are saying it will "cost" to build the house.

I think this crisis might have happened sooner. But it's not the prime driver imo.

The war in Ukraine and Brexit and COVID isn't going to help with the cost of materials either.

No.

The cost of sites and finance and profits on houses are all too high.

These three costs need to fall a lot, which means there could be higher wages and lower house prices.

not all change is good......its not necessarily a bad idea to be sceptical about the benefits of change imo. I consider myself adaptable but I do believe in looking before you leap.

it could be argued that at least some of the changes over the past 50 years haven't been good or at least weren't good for our species as a whole...perhaps if we hadnt embraced them so wholeheartedly we might not be up the particular kind of **** creek we seem to be in at the moment?

then again it was ever thus and modern life is a lot better in so many ways than it appears to have been in the past despite the constant angst/bitching/moaning etc that goes on.

But if you give the apprentices higher wages you jave to give the experienced guys a higher wage. It all has a knock on effect. Many young people over value their worth and think they should be on higher wages than their experience or qualifications demand.

Talk to developers and they will say that many sites aren't worth starting as they won't turn a profit on them. As you touch on, the ancillary costs take up a huge amount of the cost of housing, but again thats what we have demanded as a society. All the extra safety protocols, fencing, signing off by various consultants/engineers, fancy landscaping in estates, every one of these have to be passed on to the end purchasers. It all adds up.