House price inflation has been one of the greatest sources of inequality in UK
Last year the value of the average house went up by more than the average worker earned.
But if this fantastic increase in wealth and consumption possibilities for homeowners and their children does not correspond to the generation of real wealth for society as a whole, where does it come from?
The answer is that there is a redistribution from those who do not own property to those who do.
Admittedly, this transfer is not immediately obvious. After all, those people who do not own property do not suffer a loss of capital value.
House price inflation has been one of the greatest sources of inequality in this country. Bearing in mind the differing prevalence of homeownership among different demographic groups and the different average values of the homes owned, it redistributes wealth from poorer to richer, from younger to older and from the rest of the country to London and the South East.
It is difficult to argue that this redistribution has been from the undeserving to the deserving.
Roger Bootle Telegraph 20 February 2022
Kommentarer