Advocacy
Money Bites works with young people to navigate the financial system.
We believe it’s important to acknowledge the financial context young people are making decisions in while advocating for a system which is fairer, more inclusive and more accessible for young people.
As part of our advocacy, we've shared a breakdown of media, research and survey findings to share financial issues that young people are experiencing across Australia.
Ahead of the May budget Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is being urged to clean out the HECS-HELP system
Outline the current HECS debt growth for students
Jason Om from 7.30 at ABC Australia
The chair of the Universities Accord Panel Mary O'Kane told 7.30 that the HECS-HELP system needed to be reformed. The suggested reforms include the way indexation is calculated, reassessing the starting salary at which graduates are required to repay the debt and having banks change the way they assess HECS-HELP debt in home loans.
“You get told these stories at school that you'll get a better life by having a degree but what life can you achieve if you have a debt?”
Many young Australians go to uni to progress their career by getting a degree.
Having HECS-HELP debt linked to inflation without more controls to keep the debt affordable creates a system that effectively punishes them for going to uni.
If we want a future with enough doctors, teachers and other professions you need a need a uni degree to undertake, we need to ensure that the debt we ask those young people to take on is affordable and will not take away from their ability to afford a home in the future.
This isn’t the 30s I was promised
Outline how young people in their 30s are navigating financial choices including housing
Mridula Amin and Alex Lim from the Digital Story Innovation Team at ABC News
The ABC team analyses five factors across generations, including housing, healthcare, debt, tax, and income, to show how the age group of young people aged 30-34 is ‘caught in a perfect economic storm’. Alongside the data are personal stories to show how this is impacting young people including examples of reduced GP bulk billing and rising HECS debts, with the cost of degrees along rising by 10 times since 2001.
“Today’s 30-34 year-olds are the first generation in more than 47 years where most people don’t own a house”
If you’ve ever had a debate with a boomer about young people today, simply send them this article – they should thank you for it given “today’s 30-year-olds contribute twice as much tax to support over-65s than Boomers did at 30”.
The ABC has done an incredible service in showing over time for specific factors, including HECS-HELP repayments and health care costs, to show beyond doubt, economically young people aged 30-34 are worse off than previous generations.
The question we’re left asking is who has created a system that is making future generations economically worse off and who has the power to change it.
The Australian Youth Barometer
The Australian Youth Barometer gauges the pressures currently experienced by young Australians, from interviewing 500 young Australians aged 18 to 24 on topics including the economy and work.
Lucas Walsh, Beatriz Gallo Cordoba, Blake Cutler, Thuc Bao Huynh and Zihong Deng from the Monash Centre for Youth Policy and Education Practice at Monash University
The impact of the cost of living on young people has been disproportionate and has affected just about every aspect of their lives, with 9 in 10 young Australians experiencing some level of financial difficulties in the last year. The report advocates that a range of bold and innovative solutions are needed to address the issues outlined across government, the private sector, community leaders and other stakeholders.
“The issue is that young people today face vastly different structural pressures compared with previous generations. The traditional notion of working hard to become successful has become diluted. When so many young people are doing ‘extra stuff’ to get a job, it’s no longer extra – it’s just a stacked system. There’s a baked-in expectation that young Australians will work hard just to survive. It’s a tough time to be trying to establish yourself.”
If you’ve spoken to a young person not benefiting from generational wealth, the stories contained in this report may not surprise you. An example is the report’s introductory story about how a supermarket chef promotes how you can ‘feed your family for under $10’ before cutting to a block of cheese at the supermarket, which itself costs $10. Unless the meal is cheese, the supermarket simply doesn’t get it.
The importance of what we do through financial education is highlighted by the factor that young people are identifying financial security as part of being healthy.
Financial education also has to be part of the solution, with the report arguing for education institutions to provide young people with appropriate transferable knowledge and skills to allow them to make informed decisions in areas such as financial planning to address knowledge gaps.
First home buyers are using the bank of mum and dad more than ever, but is it deepening a class divide?
Outline how as housing prices across Australia continue to skyrocket, it's becoming more common for families to assist young people to enter the housing market.
Sam Nichols for The Money at ABC Australia
The number of first home buyers relying on family assistance has increased fivefold over the last decade. It outlines how because those with support from what's been dubbed the bank of mum and dad are twice as likely to enter the property market than those with no support and how this family help is exacerbating a class divide.
“If the only way into home ownership is through family assistance, what we're effectively talking about is inherited wealth. So your chances of becoming a home owner are dependent on the family you're born into. That sounds very much to me like a 19th-century hereditary society that we all thought we dispensed with 60 years ago”
In a similar way to the US, Australia prides itself on the Australian Dream and the idea that every Australian is given a fair go to make those dreams come true.
This article wakes us up to the reality for young people today: that your ability to afford a house is more likely to depend on generational wealth. The article highlights that while in 2010, 12% of first home buyers had help from their parents, its risen to 60% from 2017.
We need to ask ourselves whether your ability to afford a home should depend largely on the family you are born into and if that’s the society we want to continue to move towards or we truly believe in equity and have the will to change it.
Young Australians forgoing necessities as cost-of-living crisis deepens wealth divide
The wellbeing of millennials and gen Z is at risk as they juggle studying with rising rents and low-paid work.
Mostafa Rachwani from The Guardian Australia
Annual inflation and sharp rises to living costs and rents have impacted young people as many have to balance rising rents, fulltime study and unpaid placements or lower-paid jobs. This includes the impact of a private rental market that does not offer secure housing and a focus on what some young people are no longer able to afford as part of their budget including fresh food and medicines.
“It just creates a cycle where people can only work or study, they can’t have a social life or anything outside of that and have no means of dealing with the stresses of trying to keep up.”
When we think about the cost of living crisis, it’s difficult to picture what that looks like in practice.
If you’re a student working around your class timetable, you’ve also needed to afford rising costs including a 7.5% more for food, 11.6% more for bread, 6.7% more for rent and 12% to 14% more for utilities.
Unless you can earn more, that means many young people are cutting back in other areas of their budget including medication.
Cost of living, housing affordability biggest concerns among young people
Identify the biggest concerns for young Australians aged 18-25 each year
headspace, Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation
The headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey highlights financial instability and cost of living as the biggest concern for young Australians and was identified by 54% of survey participants as the issue they wanted to see urgently addressed. Housing affordability was also a concern, raised by 42% of young people.
“We know financial security is a protective factor for good mental health, and changes to a young person’s financial circumstances can place their mental health under stress.”
Reports like the National Youth Mental Health Survey need to be engaged with to understand what pressures young people are facing.
The fact that young people are anxious about the rising cost of living and their ability to afford both to rent and buy a home underscores how the economy is directly affecting the futures of young people and their mental health.
Financial Wellbeing and General Life Satisfaction in Australia
Identify the factors that influence financial wellbeing in Australia and understand how financial wellbeing affects life satisfaction.
Professor Christina Boedker, Dr Naomi Moy and Dr Cathy Wu from the University of Newcastle. The project was funded by Greater Bank.
The study identified that financial literacy, financial planning and financial behaviours were key financial factors that influenced financial wellbeing. The higher your financial literacy, the less likely you are to experience financial hardship, and people who do not set financial goals or strive to meet them are more likely to be financially dissatisfied.
“People who experience higher levels of financial wellbeing generally have higher levels of financial literacy, make prudent financial decisions and prepare financial plans and targets for their future.”
The report’s results show that individuals with higher levels of financial wellbeing experience are likely to experience greater life satisfaction.
Younger adults across the 18–24 and 25–34 year groupings, had the lowest level of financial literacy of the age groups surveyed.
The report suggests that younger adults need assistance in developing financial literacy and knowledge.
Disclaimer
The information on this website is for general information only. It should not be taken as constituting professional advice from the website owner – Money Bites. Money Bites is not a financial adviser. You should consider seeking independent legal, financial, taxation or other advice to check how the website information relates to your unique circumstances. Money Bites is not liable for any loss caused, whether due to negligence or otherwise arising from the use of, or reliance on, the information provided directly or indirectly, by use of this website.
