Read on to find about how the Easter Bunny will be hit by inflation, the mum who only ate foraged food for a year, how recycling could bag you cash, and a heartwarmingly hilarious gift from students to their teacher.

Good morning. In the mood for a blame game? You might recall the start of the cost of living crisis, when young people were told to ditch avocado toast and Netflix. But now it’s older generations who are in the spotlight. 

People over 50 are under fire for ditching the workforce early and swapping it out for the high-life of gardening and golf courses. Earlier this week, Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey claimed people’s early retirement has led to rising prices. 

The theory has legs. When people leave the workforce prematurely, labour supply is reduced. But if retirees maintain their spending habits by splashing their savings, demand remains high and everything gets more expensive. 

Jeremy Hunt seems on board, with his big drive to get people who have taken early retirement back into the workforce in the Spring Budget. But can we really blame boomers for the cost of living crisis? 

Let’s look at the state of work right now. Pay packets are essentially shrinking. Real wages (wages after inflation is taken into account) slumped by 3 per cent in 2022, according to the Trades Union Congress. This is a drop of around £180 a month. 

Workers across all industries are under huge pressure. There’s a big push to get senior doctors back into the NHS – but at the same time, chronic underfunding and the pandemic has driven the healthcare system to “breaking point”. 

Teachers are under strain too, with the vast majority experiencing mental health symptoms due to their work and forced to go above and beyond to support their students. They were offered a pay rise of 4.3 per cent, not even half the amount of inflation. This is just a snapshot of working life. 

So, can we really blame people for leaving the workforce early if that’s something they can afford? It comes as young people despair they might never afford retirement, people take to the streets in France as their government plans to raise the pension age, and Spain is making young people pay for older people’s pensions.

After more than a decade of austerity and cuts to public sectors, it’s certainly dangerous for policymakers to start playing the blame game and pointing fingers elsewhere. 

What do you think? Let us know by writing in, either by email to letters@bigissue.com or through our online form.

Here’s everything else you need to know this week. 

Need to know basis

🔄 Change, change, change. Ah, April. It often comes with price rises and tax hikes (exactly what we need). But it’s not all bad news. April will also see benefits, minimum wage, statutory sick pay and parental pay rise. Here’s everything you need to know. 

🪧 Food banks bite back. Charities warn expanding food banks is no substitute for proper state policies to tackle poverty. IFAN and the Trussell Trust are calling for a cash-first approach where the need for charitable food aid provision is relegated to the history books.

➡️ Broke. This is difficult but vital reading from Frances Ryan who spoke to disabled people left effectively destitute by welfare reforms. It’s an extract from Broke, published today, which explores the realities of poverty and the reforms we desperately need.

💰 Cash incoming. Dates at last. Millions of people across the UK will receive a £301 cost of living payment between April 25 and May 17. Find out if you are eligible and read about all the other cost of living help for households here. 

🥪 Making a meal of it. There are 1.7 million children in families poor enough to get universal credit but not eligible for free school meals. London’s set to roll out free school meals for all primary school children (as are Scotland and Wales). So how much would it cost to expand the scheme nationally? Researchers at the IFS weighed up the costs. 

🍬 Inflation hits the Easter Bunny. If you have kids, Newsround is a great resource for explaining the news with pieces like this exploring why the cost of chocolate and sweets is going up ahead of Easter (enough to set people of all ages into panic, myself included). We’ve also got this handy guide on how to talk to your kids about money. 

🍄 Forage away. Mo Wilde spent a year (yes, a whole year) living off wild food she had foraged. She saved an incredible £3,000 on her food shop. Maybe you could add cooked nettles to your repertoire too? The kids would love it. 

🌱 Sowing hope. Foraging not your thing? Maybe you could get involved in growing your own food with the help of the seed libraries popping up across the country. There’s no suggestion that it will solve the cost of living crisis, but it does give us food for thought. 

Did you like what you've read? Let people know by going to our sign-up article and sharing it on your social networks! You can also sign up to my colleague Evie's newsletter 'Working on It' which is all about making work better. 

On a cheery note

Now here is something to chew on for policymakers: Aldi has donated 10 tonnes of cereal and 5,000 gallons of milk to food banks, schools and community centres across the country. To put that into perspective, that’s about 200,000 breakfasts to the people who need it most. 

Saving those coins

In case you need another incentive to recycle, Bower Recycling is an app that rewards users with money and coupons or donations to charitable causes when they recycle everyday waste items. Rewards range from vouchers and discounts at grocery stores, to online retailers and even West End musicals. My colleague Michele spoke to the team here. 

Anyone doing something inspiring in your community or know about a cool initiative getting people through the cost of living crisis? Let me know on isabella.mcrae@bigissue.com

Dates for your diary 📅

March 30. Unequal futures: addressing poverty, health and inequality for young people. This Centre for Cities event will explore the links between poverty, poor health outcomes and economic inactivity in young people. 12pm, online. 

March 31. GamCare and YouGov discuss the latest on gambling and the cost of living. 11am, online.

April 1. The national living wage and minimum wage for all ages increases. 

April 1. Council tax goes up. Water bills, broadband and mobile bills will also be going up in April. But benefits are increasing too, in good news. Find out about all the changes happening to your money in April here. 

April 6. The threshold when the highest earners start paying the top rate of tax will fall from £150,000 to £125,140.

April 11. Junior doctors start four-day strike starting at 7am, ending at 7am on April 15. 

April 17. What is the real cost of food? Panel event organised by Global Food Security IRC at Cambridge University. 11am, online. 

April 25 to May 17. £301 cost of living payment to hit bank accounts of low-income households. Find out if you are eligible.  

Catch up 📺

Succession is back and with it everyone’s favourite (or not-so-favourite) filthy-rich family are gracing our screens once again for a final season. Lucy Sweet explains why the hit show is a bracingly difficult watch and that we are all Roys, really (speak for yourself). 

Sunny side up 🌞

These students compiled a whole book of quotes from their tutor (and the novelist and poet) Joseph Fasano, and it’s sure to give you a smile. One of my favourites, on Shakespeare, he said: “Some say a glove maker’s son couldn’t have been so learned to write all these plays, which is classist bullshit.”