It’s tough enough being a young person at the moment. Not only do you have to put up with older folks constantly bemoaning your work ethic, not only do governments seem more interested in punishing you and rewarding those same older folks, but the music’s not nearly as good as it was in my day.

Now I can tell you that figures from the just released Census also shows older folk are stealing the wages of young Australians.

Baby boomers and older are enjoying the biggest increase in incomes on record — but the reverse is occurring for people in their late teenage years, 20s and even 30s.

The Census collates the personal weekly income of all Australians. This is every dollar and cent of pre-tax income, covering ordinary wages, welfare payments (such as the age pension), dividends and allowances.

While most focus has been on trends in areas such as religion and ethnicity, the Census has also revealed a huge change in incomes based on age.

Play Video Gen Ys borrow money for everything from cars to groceries. The West Australian Video Gen Ys borrow money for everything from cars to groceries.

The 2006 Census recorded 2827 people in the country, aged 85 or more, who had a weekly income of more than $2000. Of the 251,000 Australians who declared an income in this age group, they accounted for just 1.1 per cent.

Last year’s Census, however, found almost 9000 people aged over 85 earning more than $2000 a week (including 5200 grabbing more than $3000 a week). The proportion of people aged 85 and over with an annual income of more than $100,000 has more than doubled, to 2.4 per cent. A similar trend is evident among those aged between 75 and 84.

Now actuaries, superannuation experts and financial planners will all tell you that once you hit retirement ages your spending rate comes down.

Normally, the mortgage is paid off and the kids are grown up and complaining about their own children’s behaviour.

The bureau of statistics actually measures different spending priorities of retirees who put more cash towards fresh food and vegetables and less towards financial products.

That’s for someone turning 65. For someone in their mid-80s the spend levels can be even lower.

So it’s more than passing strange that the income levels of people in their 70s, 80s and 90s is growing quicker than for younger people.

This increase in high incomes for older Australians is evident in other spaces.

The single biggest income earning age group in the country are 35 to 44-year-olds.

Play Video The latest Census results are in, here's how we compare from five years ago. The West Australian Video The latest Census results are in, here's how we compare from five years ago.

Traditionally, it also has the biggest number of high-income earners. At the 2011 Census, of the 1.1 million Australians who had an income of at least $2000 a week, almost 32 per cent were aged between 35 and 44.

But that fell to 30.5 per cent in the 2016 Census. The higher incomes were pushed into the older age groups.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the reverse trend is clear. At the 2006 Census about a third of all people aged between 15 and 19 had no or negative income.

Among 20-24 years the proportion was 8.2 per cent while for those aged between 25 and 35 the proportion was 7.1 per cent.

Fast-forward to the most recent headcount and the proportions were much higher.

Now about 44 per cent of all 15 to 19-year-olds aren’t earning a thing, for 20 to 24-year-olds its almost 13 per cent and for those straddling their 20s and 30s the proportion is 7.1 per cent.

Even among 35 to 44-year-olds the proportion of no or negative-income earners has grown 50 per cent in a decade. Much of this has to do with the way our jobs market is changing.

Finishing Year 12 simply doesn’t cut it with many employers. That’s why we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of students through our universities.

And, increasingly, these students are being prepared for a jobs market unlike anything those 65 or older could contemplate.

Camera Icon Illustration: Don Lindsay Credit: The West Australian

As one university official told me recently, training someone for a particular career makes little sense when that career could be destroyed in a couple of years by a new technological breakthrough.

Students have to be adaptable. Have to be have skills which enable them to shift between careers and disciplines, perhaps in the blink of an eye.

Just last week the chief executive of Seek warned of an “employment crisis” because of the increasing use of robots to do work that is now done by humans.

There are suggestions of a “robot tax” from Microsoft founder Bill Gates while there is a willing debate in Europe at the moment about a universal wage that every person would receive (instead of something like unemployment benefits).

The nation’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, used an address to a group of mathematicians last week to make a call for our students — primary, secondary and tertiary — to do more maths. And more difficult maths.

He noted Florence Nightingale was a statistician whose health breakthrough was driven by collating data from the hospitals that treated soldiers in the Crimean War. Her data showed the British army that soldiers were dying, not from bullets, but from cholera and typhus.

The Lady of the Lamp demanded extra maths tutoring growing up. Australian students need to follow Nightingale’s lead.

“There is nothing so dis-empowering as ignorance of the numbers we need to navigate the world,” Dr Finkel said. “Never forget, the weakest person in a negotiation is always the person who can’t add up in their head.”

All of which makes sense. But somehow a younger Australian needs an income to feed and clothe themselves while putting a roof over their heads as they bury their heads in extra maths exercises.

Play Video The 2016 Census data also shows almost half of us were born overseas or had a parent born overseas The West Australian Video The 2016 Census data also shows almost half of us were born overseas or had a parent born overseas

Instead, as a body politic we’re more worried about protecting tax breaks for older people (Treasurer Scott Morrison’s best policy victory so far has been in the superannuation area) than about the huge run-up in debt being dumped on university graduates (forecast to be $76 billion by the end of the decade).

And, as the Census figures suggest, if younger people aren’t earning much in the way then they’re behind the eight ball when it comes to paying down that education debt. That’s before you factor in the debt for getting into Australia’s overpriced property market.

If you’re a young Australian, you can rightfully claim the future’s being eaten — by older Australians.