The top British think tank says young people (25) should be given £10,000 to bridge generation wealth gap
The Resolution Foundation has made a stunning suggestion for reducing inequality between the young and old - giving the young money, £10,000 to be exact (€11,400).
Research shows that Millennial's in developed countries have fallen behind older generations when it comes to general wealth, income and home ownership, in the wake of the global financial crisis.
People born during the 1980s and 1990s have faced tough economic challenges since the Great Recession, including a slowdown in wage growth along with higher housing costs. Millennial's earn less than their predecessors Generation X, born between 1966 and 1980.
And Matt Whittaker, deputy director at the Resolution Foundation believes the issue needs to be addressed. "We need not just some tinkering, but some big and dramatic solutions," Mr Whittaker said.
The proposed £10,000 payment would come with strings attached however: Young people would only be allowed to spend it on developing new skills, entrepreneurship, housing or pensions. And it's understood the proposed payments would cost British taxpayers an estimated £7 billion (€7.9 billion).
"This stalling of generational pay progress is unprecedented," the researchers said.
However, the Foundation admitted that while the payments would help younger people, it wouldn't address other structural problems in the UK economy, including slow productivity.
"If we could fix the productivity problem then it would make a lot of the problems that we highlight easier to deal with," said Whittaker.