More than half of people in the U.K. receive more in benefits than they contribute in taxes, official figures show – and it’s only going to get worse. The Telegraph has more.
A total of 52.6% lived in households that received more from the state than they paid to the Treasury last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figures underscore the challenge facing Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves as they try to tackle a ballooning sickness benefit bill and pressures from an ageing population.
The analysis, which reveals a decrease from 53.6% the previous year and covers the 12 months to March 2023, factors in both cash benefits and the use of public services such as the NHS, schools and free childcare.
Working-age people are typically net contributors to the state – meaning they pay more in direct and indirect taxes than they receive in benefits and public services.
However, even among this group, 45.3% received more from the state than they paid in taxes, although this partially reflects benefits relating to education and childcare.
Meanwhile, pensioners are overwhelmingly classed as net recipients, with 85.3% receiving more from the Government than they contribute.
The latest findings have been released as Britain struggles with stagnant growth, faltering public services and a tax burden heading towards a post-war high, inflicting ever greater pain on workers.
These pressures are only set to intensify as the population ages and more people become so-called net recipients in retirement, with the number of over-85s set to double by 2045 to 3.1 million.
No wonder we can’t afford anything.
Worth reading in full.
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So 47.4% of us live in households that received less from the state than they paid to the Treasury last year.
Or even:
About half of us live in households that receive more and the other half receive less than they pay for.
Even more obviously the dividing point is whether or not your household includes people currently working.
No Sh*t Sherlock.
It’s one of the main reasons for governments to take from the rich and give to the poor.
A more important point is whether the government is getting value for our money.
No, the important point is whether WE are getting value for OUR money.
As dom Frisbee says, the state is the most expensive thing any of us buy across our lifetime.
I would add that it’s not a purchase any of us would make voluntarily.
Yep.
I’ve often thought that withholding money from government and giving it to (selected) charities will do a hell of a lot more good than letting the government take it.
I wonder if they calculated this with public sector workers, who in effect don’t pay taxes. They receive pay from the public purse on which a tax amount is calculated but not paid as its just going from one pocket to another, but in the same trousers..
Either way, it is essential for the private sector to grow and the public sector to be cut back. I’d like to see zero budgeting across the councils especially. Too much of our spending is ‘last years spend + inflation’. You wouldn’t spend your own money like that, so why do we do it with the taxpayers..?
And is the State Pension considered a state benefit, when we have been told all our working lives that we are making contributing to our state pension?
We know there’s no state pension fund, but so much of government is treated as a ‘black box’ operation, with only some of the inputs and outputs declared, it’s verges on the lying by omission. And it isn’t credible for this schizophrenia to continue.
And the State has been burrowing and printing money increasingly since 1945 to pay for this increasing imbalance.
Abolish the welfare state and the instilled belief that everyone can live at the expense of each other.
The greatest surge in social and economic progress for everyone, not just a few, took place in the 200 years prior to the welfare state, when people knew they had to look after themselves, when their was near zero Government involvement in either the economy of society.
The greatest social and economic regress has happened in 75+ years since the launch of the welfare state.
In the 1970s, two to three times annual wage would support a mortgage for a decent first time property buy. Now it’s a struggle on nine times wage. That’s what debt funded welfare, parasite statism with our currency debauched by money printing to cover repayment and servicing if the debt, has done.
And the fault is YOU voting in which ever bunch bribes you most with more free stuff and relieves you of responsibility for yourselves and family.
I still have issue with this claim about what you need for a decent first time buy. Yes, I know the South East and London is unaffordable for pretty much everyone but if you want to buy a house in most of the rest of the country, it’s easily achievable. Where I am, plenty of houses are available for between £100-£150k and those are three beds. For a couple on even minimum wage, that is three times their joint income. My first house in the mid 1980s was a modern, one bed corner of a block of four with no central heating on the outskirts of Bristol and to afford it, I did a full time junior management banking job and bar work Friday and Saturday, but today the average first time buyer wants a three bed plus and also doesn’t want to work full time.
Would lenders give three times joint income on a 100% mortgage? Would workers on minimum wage have 10% or more deposit to reduce the loan? Would they have the money to furnish a three bed house, pay the mortgage and pay the bills without yet more debt?
Er. No. When Mrs SoR and I first bought a 3 bed house after starting in a studio flat we used cast off curtains and furniture that our parents had mysteriously decided to replace at about that time (can’t think why – spooky coincidence). One of our rooms remained empty/storage only with bare floorboards for about 4 years.
…and you tell that to the youth of today…
Your story exactly mirrors mine, SoR. The first house had only one set of new furniture, a self assembly dining table and two chairs from B&Q in the lounge, everything else hand me downs. The second house, a two bedroom semi had one furnished bedroom and one with a single bed, no carpet and no other furniture. Eventually I managed to buy a new sofa for this home.
When Socialism provides the bare necessities for the misfortunate, it becomes automatic, with no judgement, because how could it in our current wokeness, so the bare necessities become more luxurious, the decreased fear of misfortunate reduces preparing for unexpected events, and even thinking itself is cast aside. It’s all about feeling.
So, no matter where the dysfunctionality shows itself, it’s ‘spending other people’s money until it runs out’ that is the root of the problem. And the demise of thinking about your survival, where the poor can emulate the rich, is sealing in the inevitable catastrophe.
No wonder one of those those “assisted death” adverts featured a picture of a family celebrating Christmas, with the caption: “Give them the gift of death – yours!” Time for those useless wrinklies to get off the back of “hard working families”!
Nasty. (Well done).
But not while they are babysitting the grandchildren, or even the great-grandchildren!
How else is a system of redistribution of wealth going to sustain itself in the long run if it isn’t a majority ripping off a minority?
And the majority is insatiable. It will always want more and back those who are willing to use the brute force of the state to give it to them.
It isn’t.
It’s why Charity used to be held in high esteem.
Because it’s ‘sustainable’.
If you work for the government or get government support you are off the voter rolls. It’s the only way to be sure, shy of nuking it from orbit.
“Meanwhile, pensioners are overwhelmingly classed as net recipients, with 85.3% receiving more from the Government than they contribute.”
But of course, most will have paid into the system all their lives (and are now beyond working age) ….. unlike the recent arrival, low-wage, welfare claimants and their hordes of dependants-on-the-state.
Please note from the article:
“The analysis … factors in both cash benefits and the use of public services such as the NHS, schools and free childcare.”
Basically, it is just saying that the government hands out more than it receives in taxes. In other words, it is running a deficit. Big news.
The Telegraph headline is grossly misleading and the Daily Sceptic should be more sceptical!
Who doesn’t pay vat? Who doesn’t pay tax if they buy goods and service where that income pays staff’s salaries.
everything is tax.