The chairman of Dundee’s youth council says young people are struggling to make ends meet as they become caught in an unemployment ”trap”.
Matt Landsburgh was reacting to the launch of a campaign by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) to end the ”blatant discrimination” against young people in the benefits system.
The charity has branded the current situation both ”illogical” and ”unfair”.
With UK youth unemployment now at the highest level since records began in 1992, growing numbers of young Scots are having to rely on welfare support as they struggle to find jobs and housing.
However, says CAS, people under the age of 25 receive 20% less in Jobseeker Allowance than those aged 25 and over. The under-25s are also eligible for lower housing benefit payments than their older neighbours and are not entitled to working tax credits simply because of their age.
CAS head of policy Susan McPhee said: ”Young Scots have been hit as hard as anyone by the recession. They face exactly the same pressures as everyone else high bills, falling incomes, and an uncertain future and yet the benefits system blatantly discriminates against them by restricting many of their entitlements, purely on the basis of their age. This is illogical as well as unfair.
”Bills don’t make any distinction based on age you pay the same for a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol or a month’s rent, regardless of how old you are, yet the benefits system restricts your income not on the basis of your circumstances but purely because of your age.
”It’s time to end this unfairness now. Young Scots did nothing to create this recession and, indeed, they are the ones who will have to build our economic future and stop it happening again. They deserve the same support as everyone else.”
Mr Landsburgh, a student at Dundee University, said: ”I think all young people are struggling in the economic climate and, I think, disproportionately to other age groups with things like the basic cost of living and especially with things like transport.
”That is one of the things that the youth council is keen to look at and we will be taking forward once we have finished our consultation to find out the issues that matter to young people.”
He went on: ”It is particularly hard for young people when it is difficult to find a job because young people are caught in the ‘no experience, therefore no job, therefore no experience, therefore no work’ trap.”