Who screwed millennials‪?‬ The Guardian

Australian millennials are the first generation to be worse off than their parents, and things are only heading in the same direction for gen Z. In this deeply researched yet tongue-in-cheek five-part podcast series, Full Story co-host Jane Lee and social media reporter Matilda Boseley investigate the mystery of who screwed young Australians out of affordable housing, education and secure work, and why inequality is rising in Australia

With rising house prices, a decade of wage stagnation and ballooning student debt, young people in Australia are living through what author Jill Filipovic describes as ‘a series of broken promises’. In episode one of this new series from Guardian Australia, Full Story co-host Jane Lee and reporter Matilda Boseley sort through these broken promises, investigating why young people are living in a time of such economic strain. In this episode, we hear from a handful of experts featured in Who screwed millennials? – including author Jill Filipovic, youth researcher Intifar Chowdhury, author Malcolm Harris, Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis about how millennials became the first generation to be worse off than their parents

How did the government set fire to the Australian housing market? Jane Lee and Matilda Boseley look at how the threat of a communist uprising, a benign sounding tax review and one prime minister’s admiration for two world leaders changed the lives of young Australians

How did a system that was meant to make access to university more equitable end up burdening students with the very $100,000 degrees John Howard promised Australia would never have? Jane Lee and Matilda Boseley talk to the Labor-appointed architect of the higher education contribution scheme to understand why student fees were introduced, who benefited and how he wound up at a dinner party where guests were planning to burn an effigy … of him. In part three of Who screwed millennials? we hear from economist Prof Bruce Chapman, Guardian Australia editor Lenore Taylor, university historian Julia Horne, VicWise founder Manorani Guy and education reporter Caitlin Cassidy to trace the dozens of ideological changes over decades that transformed the nature of our university system

Why is the best way to get a pay rise to get a new job? Millennials have entered the workforce at a time when work is precarious: a third of Australia’s workforce are employed as casuals, freelancers or on short-term contracts. And wages have been heading south for the best part of a decade. But how did we get here? In this episode of Who Screwed Millennials? Jane Lee and Matilda Boseley talk to chief political correspondent Paul Karp, ACTU secretary Sally McManus, assistant national secretary of the MUA Thomas Mayo, former industrial relations consultant Paul Houlihan, labour history academic Geraldine Fela, ACTU president Michele O’Neil, former outworker Nguyet Nguyen and author Emma Do to examine the successive decisions over four decades that got us here

There are no easy answers to undoing all the problems driving intergenerational inequality but hope is not lost. Young Australians are increasingly politically influential, making up 43% of voters at the last federal election. Jane Lee and Matilda Boseley call on Guardian Australia political reporter Amy Remeikis and the Australia Institute’s chief economist, Greg Jericho, to find out whether this is influencing policy debates on everything from housing to climate change, and how millennials can use their new-found power for good