Moaning Millennials? They've been stuffed by their parents who should be thankful they're nice people

Millennial men are in the first generation to earn less than their fathers, according to the Resolution Foundation, in a piece of research that should be much, much more disturbing than even the most sensationalist of media reports might lead you to believe.

Here’s why: The Resolution report came out about the same time that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) predicted a 25 per cent rise in the cost of renting via the private sector over the next five years.

In these days of fake news, and fun with forecasters, it has to be remembered that that figure is a prediction from a survey conducted prior to the release of the Government’s shiny, new and much-criticised housing policy.

But it is one from an authoritative organisation, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, that is made up of experts. So it ought to have some credibility.

What’s that? You say Michael Gove reckons Britain has had enough of experts? Just hear me out for a bit longer and I’ll answer that one.

Millennial men in poorly paying jobs, not to mention millennial women, who are only just about keeping pace with their mothers, tend to rent.

Rent takes up about half their income already, if they’re in private sector accommodation, which makes it all but impossible to save for a deposit and partly explains why the good surveyors think it will cost only 20 per cent more to buy in five years. Less people able to afford a deposit means less buyers. As a result, rental costs keep on rising, leading to less… Well you can see where it’s going.

It would help if wages were rising at a decent clip, but they’re not doing that. In fact, research by the Resolution Foundation (again) has found poorer households, which are more likely to be renting, are set to suffer a fall in their incomes, leading to the biggest rise in inequality since the days of Mr Gove’s heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

The Bank of England also thinks that overall wage growth is going to slow this year, with the exception of those on the minimum wage (it is rising) and CEOs. Their pay goes up even if they’re rubbish at their jobs.

It’s true that the UK economy has been doing surprisingly well, but what these figures will tell you is that a lot of people aren’t feeling it, and that’s going to get worse as inflation rises and shows up in the shops, as it has been doing.

Rising rents, slowing pay, higher prices, a generation that has been stuffed by the decisions made by its elders. It really is time to stop all that bilge about moany millennials. They have very good reason to be unhappy and we haven’t even got to Brexit yet, which may very well prove to be the biggest gut punch they have suffered.

We are, in fact, very, very lucky that they are, as a rule, rather more civilised than their forbears.

If we took after people like the Brexiteers Nigel Farage keeps saying are going to riot if they don’t get their way, we’d be in deep trouble. Which is why the report is so very disturbing. Unequal societies are unstable societies. Eventually the patience of some millennials may run out. They may find ways to express their unhappiness that go beyond venting their justified anger on social media.

Of course, if Mr Gove and Mr Farage, and their fellow travellers who managed to get government jobs out of their folly, are right, then Brexit will present Britain with lots of lovely opportunities and we’ll all end up much richer. Problem solved! And by the way, that is indeed Napoleon the pig flying outside along with half of the other inhabitants of Animal Farm.

Which brings us back to that point I made about Mr Gove: I’m not sure he and his fellow Brexiteers can be said to have any more credibility than the forecasters they deride. What little they do have is undermined every time they try to weasel out of that £350m extra for the NHS Brexit pledge they keep trying to claim was not a pledge after all.