The economy is heavily skewed towards baby boomers and against millennials, with the state pension triple-lock set to worsen the problem according to the Commons Work and Pensions Committees intergenerational fairness report.
It said that retaining the triple-lock would lead to pension expenditure accounting for an unsustainable share of national income.
The committee concluded that pensioners have been protected from spending cuts that have largely been felt by younger groups, and benefits, such as winter-fuel payments, should not be off limits when governments seek savings.
Chair of the committee, Frank Field MP, said: "The welfare state is underpinned by an implicit intergenerational contract. Each generation is supported in retirement by their in-work successors.
"It is now the working young and their children who face the daunting challenge of getting on in an economy skewed against them."
The report made the following comments on the skewed economy:
The millennial generation, born between 1981 and 2000, faces being the first in modern times to be financially worse off than its predecessors
As the taxes of working people support record numbers of the retired, the ageing population places strain on those in work
After housing costs, average pensioner household incomes now exceed those of working-age
Improvements in retirement incomes have not been matched elsewhere: children are now twice as likely as pensioners to be living in poverty
Many young people are priced out of home ownership - and do not have access to generous occupational pensions - and are therefore locked out of building wealth
The committee proposed to replace the triple-lock with a smoothed earning link for the state pension.
The new state pension should have a benchmark proportion of average earnings it could not fall below, and by 2020 would have a headline rate close to historic highs with an "above the means-tested minimum", providing a solid foundation for personal spending.
It argues that if inflation exceeded earnings growth, the purchasing power of the state pension should be protected by price indexation.
This price indexation would continue once earnings growth again exceeds inflation until the state pension is again at the benchmark level.
Field added: "Great strides have been made against the scourge of pensioner poverty and the new state pension is at a level to provide an effective minimum income and encourage personal saving.
"It is time for the triple-lock to be shelved. The system we propose protects pensioners and allows them to share the proceeds of future good times, but at the same time is inter-generationally fair.
"We call on all parties to get behind it."