youthmoney

There aren’t many options for low-income households wanting to borrow money. Credit unions are a very  good choice. Their loans are designed to be affordable. Members can be encouraged to save as they make repayments. Some unions offer financial education and other support. Loan sharks are disastrous. Their loans are illegal, very expensive and very [...]

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Scrap child trust funds, says Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The analysis, from a widely respected think-tank, is that the scheme’s cost is small, but not insignificant. Emmerson floats the idea of ending the payments – two of £250 so far, more to low-income families. Parents save or invest the [...]

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In some parts of the country, joblessness among 18-24 year olds is reaching 20 per cent. Here’s a snapshot of the worst areas, just posted on Mark Easton’s website, statistics courtesy of the Office of National Statistics (dark red areas are worst, lighter areas better): Easton also has a link to the data in an excel file, [...]

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Young people don’t like owing money. They worry about it. They avoid it if they can. They are, in the financial industry’s jargon, debt-averse. That’s not surprising to anyone who talks regularly to young people about money. But it challenges widespread assumptions that young people are a reckless, spend-now generation that accepts debt as way [...]

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How is big business tracking children online, watching their preferences, and then tempting them with offers they’ll find it impossible to resist? Like this: Let’s take an example. Laura, aged 9, signs up to a toy website so that she can make a Christmas list to send to all her friends and relatives. Already, she’s [...]

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Just skimming an analysis and discussion paper on the aspirations of young people in deprived communities. It’s a good and interesting piece of work, produced last month, by…deep breath…the Social Exclusion Taskforce, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. It points out that 11 to 14 is [...]

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Ask someone how much a present they’ve been given is worth. They tend to give it a lower value than the price the giver actually paid. Some years ago a US economist got interested in this, and did some quick research. The yuletide economics of Joel Waldfogel show that when you give someone a present, [...]

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The banking industry seems pleased with itself. The British Bankers’ Association is trumpeting the take-up of basic bank accounts. It says that 7.4 million accounts are now in operation. Some 341,300 accounts were opened in the first quarter of 2008. Jolly good show. Some questions are not answered. Or even asked. One is, how many [...]

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Good that Nick Clegg, lib dem leader, chose to focus on helping young people with financial literacy. Sadly, his speech to a youth parliament earlier this week was far too heavy on the maths. “Financial literacy must become a comprehensive part of the maths curriculum,” he said. He’s simply wrong. Maths lessons are the wrong [...]

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National media are doing a pretty lousy job of covering the education maintenance allowance failures. Only the BBC news online seems to be taking it at all seriously—reporting the experiences of young people who’ve been let down and the frustration caused. It quotes Nigel Robbins, principal of Cirencester College in Gloucestershire, “There’s no sense of [...]

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