FOR 70 years we've been used to rising living standards.

We live longer than our grandparents did, we eat better food, we're surrounded by material comforts they couldn't have dreamed of.

For the first time since the war, however, the next generation may be worse off than this one, according to a report by the York-based Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

There are more young people aged 16-24 living in poverty today than 10 years ago; the high cost of housing means there is more homelessness now than five years ago; and while unemployment overall is falling, under 25s are four times more likely to be jobless than older people. Even if they find work, many jobs are so poorly paid or insecure they may still struggle to make ends meet.

"A large proportion of young people are being locked out of the opportunities they need to build a secure future," said Joseph Rowntree Foundation chief executive Julia Unwin.

No-one will be really surprised. We have never fully recovered from the worst recession since the war. And the evidence of how difficult life has become for children and young people is all around us; in the way poorer children are falling behind at school, in the spiralling cost of university tuition, the soaring price of housing.

Nevertheless, it is shocking to see this put in such blunt terms.

The question is what should we do about it?

The JRF has some suggestions: including getting the best teachers to work in the poorest schools; creating more secure, better-paid jobs; and building more affordable homes.

All this will cost money, of course: which is what the government says it doesn't have.

But if we're not to condemn our own children and grandchildren to a life of hardship and struggle, we'd better do something before it is too late.