Tens of thousands of young workers, graduates, students and unemployed school leavers are reportedly going without food and faking insurance claims to make ends meet – and some are even selling their own hair, researchers discovered.
The findings come from an independent ICM poll of 2,012 people nationwide for a new report by financial services consultancy MRM, Young Money, which probes the attitudes of today’s recession-hit young adults towards their finances.
Nearly a quarter (22%) said they knew of someone their age who had skipped a meal to cover their expenses or make money.
Some 10% said they knew of someone who had been involved in drug dealing to make extra money, while 8% said they knew of someone who had worked in the sex industry – either through prostitution, glamour modelling, escorting, lap-dancing or stripping.
A further 4% said they knew someone who had faked an insurance claim and 3% said they knew someone who had sold their own hair. Nearly one in five (19%) said they knew someone in their twenties who had taken out a payday loan.
MRM director Michael Taggart said: “Our research has uncovered a generation of risk-takers, credit-hunters and those willing to go without the most fundamental basics of everyday life to save money.
“With wages falling, unemployment rising and state benefits increasingly unavailable, it is small wonder that some are taking desperate measures. Twentysomethings have never been more in need of help and advice with their finances and this is an increasingly crucial challenge for the financial services industry and the public and third sectors.”
Which? Money deputy editor Gareth Shaw, who sat on an expert panel for the study, said: “Payday loan companies have barged their way into the mainstream and it’s not uncommon now for people to be relying on them not just when they’re short on cash but when they need to buy essentials like food, nappies and petrol.”
And Young Money blogger Iona Bain, who also sat on the panel, added: “Clearly, many young people feel they have to resort to desperate and tawdry measures in order to get by as their housing, education and employment prospects have rapidly deteriorated in recent years. If we let impoverished young people drift into debt, drug dealing and the sex industry in order to survive, we will have, financially and morally, a lost generation on our hands.”
Asked about more conventional methods of obtaining cash, 34% of respondents said they knew someone in their twenties who had taken out a credit card, 29% a loan from a bank and 20% an interest-free loan from family.
