‘No hope’: Bunting calls for radical reform to halt youth migration
Toriann Ellis / Our Today
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People’s National Party PNP senator Peter Bunting has argued that the root cause of migration, which has impacted the education and medical sectors in Jamaica to a certain degree, isn’t simply about jobs but quality of life.
“Raising the tax-free income threshold to $3.5 million is one of the most fundamental and revolutionary things we can do to retain our best and brightest,” Bunting said while participating in Tuesday night’s General Election Debates 2025. “Teachers, nurses, police officers—they should be able to provide for their families in the way they should.”
Describing the PNP’s manifesto as “not just a campaign” for the upcoming general election on September 3, Bunting exclaimed that it’s about the next generation. Bunting said the party intends to rebuild the middle class and remove the barriers keeping young professionals stagnant.
“We want to ensure that buying a house, buying a car, aspiring to improve, to lift your whole generation, is not merely a dream,” he said, revealing that the PNP’s proposal is radical, transformational and requires a shaking up and re-ordering of all the priorities of government.
He noted that the PNP is working for a social revolution while expressing that citizens won’t elect a new government that will do the same thing that the outgoing government was elected to do.
On housing, the PNP also criticised the JLP’s approach, noting that young people are discouraged when it comes to becoming homeowners.
“Yong people say they have no hope of owning a home. With the NHT limit being raised to $9 million, the problem is that houses cost $40 million, so there’s no hope,” he said.
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