More than 600,000 households receive more in benefits than the average worker’s salary while 16,000 receive over £60,000, new analysis has revealed. The Telegraph has the story.
The figures show that 625,618 households were each given more than £32,200 in welfare payouts last year – the average annual salary of a British worker after tax – despite the introduction of a benefits cap.
The analysis, by the Conservatives, also revealed that 16,000 of those households received more than £60,000 in welfare payments – almost twice the average annual take-home pay.
The figures will provoke calls for an overhaul of the £155 billion benefits budget and for reform of the welfare cap to ensure that ‘work always pays’.
Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to cut welfare spending in order to bolster Britain’s defence budget, with Labour preparing to unveil its defence investment plan “within weeks”.
Neil O’Brien, the Shadow Minister for Policy Development, who conducted the analysis, said: “The real-terms growth and scale of really large benefit claims from working-age households make the case for a return to welfare reform stronger.
“We need reforms across all types of benefit – and particularly the household benefit cap, which is no longer really constraining the growth of really large claims.
“Some households are getting a lot more in benefits than the average person gets to take home after working full-time. We need a system that’s fair to taxpayers as well as those benefiting from it.”
Labour, however, maintained that households receiving this level of support had the “highest level of need”, with one or more family members suffering severe disability.
The Tory analysis suggests that the number of working-age households receiving more than £30,000 a year in benefits has climbed by more than a third to 800,000 since the Department for Work and Pensions started using administrative data on incomes people actually receive instead of relying on asking them in surveys.
Of those, some 667,278 households took more than the average salary of £32,200 a year in 2023-24 – a record high and up 30% on the previous year. The number dropped to 625,618 in 2024-25, but was still double the 392,000 in 2019-20.
The 600,000-plus families accounted for one in 30 of all households in Britain. Of those, 267,000 received more than £40,000 a year, 91,000 were paid more than £50,000 and 16,289 received more than £60,000 a year in 2024-25 – an 8.5% increase on the previous year.
The benefit cap, introduced in 2013 by George Osborne, the then Tory chancellor, was designed to limit the maximum amount of benefits that a working-age household can receive, to encourage people into work.
But if the household includes one adult in receipt of disability benefit, even if there are other adults in the family who are fully able to work, they all avoid the benefit limit.
The Tories are proposing to close this loophole, which allows uncapped benefits for a whole household if just one adult is eligible for the Personal Independence Payment (Pip).
They would require all adults who were able to work to be employed for at least 16 hours a week and face a cap if they were not.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/09/17/world/russia-brazen-attacks-europe/ A Bloomberg source close to the Kremlin said outright that Russia intends to “make…
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RTSC
4 months ago
The ethnic “community” which has people making the biggest claims: the Bangladeshi Community.
The moronic British Establishment has turned us into the Welfare State for the 3rd World.
Judy Watson
4 months ago
Time was unemployment benefit was not given out unless you had a minimum of two years of work and contributions. What happened.
Jack the dog
4 months ago
The economy is crashing. Some link perhaps?
huxleypiggles
4 months ago
“Welfare Pays More Than Work for 600,000 Households”
My experience suggests that the figure is comfortably in excess of two million. Eighty grand pa PAYE equivalent was far from uncommon fifteen years ago.
Some time back a welfare sponger was saying how she was able to take multiple foreign holidays by being careful with her benefits money. The first thought was for those who work to fund her benefits and cannot afford any foreign holidays. And the second was that the level of benefits was obviously far too high.
JXB
4 months ago
Would the flood of 12 million cultural enrichers, engineers and “backbone” of the NHS over the last 20 odd years ALL of whom are sucking at the Teat of State one way or another, have anything to do with it, I wonder?
• National debt (public sector net debt): ~ £2.91 trillion
• Population: ~ 69.5 million
• Welfare/social security spending ~ £334 billion in 2025/26
• NHS/health spending: ~ £280 billion.
I wonder?
Now some will say today’s figures are increased due to inflation, but inflation is a cost too. And since the contribution of immigrants has “built” Britain and has been soooo… good for the economy – why the inflation and all that debt?
What really, really angers me, as someone rapidly approaching their state pension age in a few years, is the continuous intermingling of pensions and state payments to people not working. I know we have to blame the idiots who set the whole thing up years ago, because they included pensions within the benefit industry and, unlike so many other nations, did not create a pension fund. But what really annoys me, as someone who started working at eighteen and is married to someone who started working at sixteen, (both of us paying income tax and national insurance from that age), is no one is criticising the youth who are not starting to contribute until they are in their mid-twenties, if they even start work and contribute at all. We are told off for surviving to the age where we collect our pensions, with so many commentators telling us that sixty years ago, most didn’t live long enough to collect theirs, but nobody is talking about the loss of income to the government from the eternal schooling of young people today.
“… no one is criticising the youth who are not starting to contribute until they are in their mid-twenties…”
Why should young people pay your “pension” (and mine) which you admit is actually a welfare payment?
And the youth today didn’t cause this problem, you and all “pensioners” did by keep voting for a non-funded “pension”, when you were told in the 1950s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and 15 years ago, that the system was incapable of meeting its obligations out of contributions, which is why we had the addition Graduated Pension, replaced by SERPS, then the opt-out of SERPS scheme, then State Pension 2.
Take responsibility for what you and all those who consistently voted for the Socialist greed-creed since 1945 – the desire by people for other people’s money to be taken by the coercive force of the State to serve their interests.
The state pension is a welfare payment. It is not money that has been in some way saved up and/or invested on behalf of the individual who eventually receives it.
NI contributions (and general taxation) taken from workers/businesses this year are used to pay state pensions this year. When there’s a shortfall the government borrows and future taxpayers will have to pay off the loan.
When we get our state pensions they will be paid for by taxing people still working/earning at the time. Civil service pensions are also funded this way.
Private pensions are mostly funded using money taken from the individual and employer during their employment and invested to grow in the capitalist system until the individual needs/wants it.
“The state pension is a welfare payment. It is not money that has been in some way saved up and/or invested on behalf of the individual who eventually receives it.”
This is very unfair on those who have worked all their lives and paid taxes. If the State pension is a welfare payment then governments should have provided an opt-out to those requiring such but they didn’t. Furthermore, the message put about by all governments has been that NIC’s helped to pay for these pensions except every bloody government since inception has treated NIC’s as simply ‘gravy.’
To make matters worse that one-eyed loon Broon broke the back of private pensions in 1997 when he was Chancellor with his removal of tax credits on dividends to pension funds which wiped £5 billion pa off those funds. That’s thirty years ago so what is the value in today’s money? And to make matters worse contributions to pensions are made from income that has already been taxed, that’s some racket.
Clear to see why Kneel passed an act of Parliament to secure his iwn pension isn’t it?
Unfair? Yes, as workers we were promised that when we pay for current state pensioners then when we retire we’ll be paid for by the then workers in our turn. Essentially it’s a Ponzi scheme that only pays out when more new ‘investors’ join the scheme hoping to get their payout from those that join later still. It becomes uneconomic when there are more drawing money out (and for longer) than those currently paying in.The big difference from Ponzi is that when it does become uneconomic the state has obliged itself to cover the costs through general taxation or borrowing.
The state pension and other welfare should be a safety net and not a substitute for individual prudence. If you don’t work, you should not live as well as those who do. If you don’t save for your future needs then you shouldn’t live as well in retirement as those who have saved. How the country gets from where we are to where we need to be on this issue is fraught. Any political party that moves too fast on this will be unpopular with those who lose out. Promising to break the triple lock on the state pension is… Read more »
Quite right. Very stupid to blame the people for the failure of government not to plan for paying the state pension by using NI. And entitlement to the state pension is governed by your NI payments record.
We are told off for surviving to the age where we collect our pensions, with so many commentators telling us that sixty years ago, most didn’t live long enough to collect theirs…
In England and Wales in 1966 the average age at death (the average number of years of life of all those who died that year, including infants and children) was 65.0 for men and 71.9 for women. The most common age at death excluding infants was 73 for men and 80 for women (in 1966 more boys aged under 1 died than men aged 73). Half of all deaths occurred under age 67 for men and 74 for women. I believe the state pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women. We can correct anyone who says that most people didn’t live long enough to collect their pensions.
Government has NO money. Loss of income to Government is simply a loss to taxpayers.
DiscoveredJoys
4 months ago
The first rule of solving a problem is to stop making matters worse.
So – immediately freeze all benefits. Then you can work through them and reinstate benefit increases (for inflation for instance) where justified. And then work through them and stop, limit or reduce those that cannot be justified.
Even then the cost of benefits will be substantial so repeat the process regularly until society no longer sees benefits as anything other than a safety net.
Factoid: in 1948 pre-NHS, there were 1 150+ hospitals with 90 000 beds run by the voluntary sector = charity, for the “poor”. That was no cost to the taxpayer. Once the NHS took over these hospitals that cost landed on the taxpayer.
There were at the time about 1 550 municipal hospitals run by local authorities with 390 000 beds. These were funded by local councils out of the rates, also by charging some patients who could afford to pay, and a 40% block grant from Central Government.
When the NHS was launched, the whole cost fell on the Taxpayer.
And: 2 600 hospital with 480 000 beds pre-NHS is now 1 600 hospitals and 145 000 beds, the 1948 waiting list of 400 000 has become 7 million today.
Bang those pans.
The reason why welfare is out of control, is Government has been running a de facto national charity with forced donations, and a free all-you-can-eat welfare buffet for UK and the World’s citizens.
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Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The ethnic “community” which has people making the biggest claims: the Bangladeshi Community.
The moronic British Establishment has turned us into the Welfare State for the 3rd World.
Time was unemployment benefit was not given out unless you had a minimum of two years of work and contributions. What happened.
The economy is crashing. Some link perhaps?
“Welfare Pays More Than Work for 600,000 Households”
My experience suggests that the figure is comfortably in excess of two million. Eighty grand pa PAYE equivalent was far from uncommon fifteen years ago.
Massive under reporting.
Some time back a welfare sponger was saying how she was able to take multiple foreign holidays by being careful with her benefits money. The first thought was for those who work to fund her benefits and cannot afford any foreign holidays. And the second was that the level of benefits was obviously far too high.
Would the flood of 12 million cultural enrichers, engineers and “backbone” of the NHS over the last 20 odd years ALL of whom are sucking at the Teat of State one way or another, have anything to do with it, I wonder?
End of the 90s:-
• National debt: Around £350 billion
• Population: ~58.3–58.4 million.
• Welfare/social security spending (benefits & tax credits): ~£88–90+ billion
• NHS/health spending: ~£50–60 billion
And currently:-
• National debt (public sector net debt): ~ £2.91 trillion
• Population: ~ 69.5 million
• Welfare/social security spending ~ £334 billion in 2025/26
• NHS/health spending: ~ £280 billion.
I wonder?
Now some will say today’s figures are increased due to inflation, but inflation is a cost too. And since the contribution of immigrants has “built” Britain and has been soooo… good for the economy – why the inflation and all that debt?
It would have been so much worse without all the immigrants.
I admire your sense of humour.
It’s about all we have left.
Mass immigration is Safe and Effective.
Unless you are Jewish of course.
What really, really angers me, as someone rapidly approaching their state pension age in a few years, is the continuous intermingling of pensions and state payments to people not working. I know we have to blame the idiots who set the whole thing up years ago, because they included pensions within the benefit industry and, unlike so many other nations, did not create a pension fund. But what really annoys me, as someone who started working at eighteen and is married to someone who started working at sixteen, (both of us paying income tax and national insurance from that age), is no one is criticising the youth who are not starting to contribute until they are in their mid-twenties, if they even start work and contribute at all. We are told off for surviving to the age where we collect our pensions, with so many commentators telling us that sixty years ago, most didn’t live long enough to collect theirs, but nobody is talking about the loss of income to the government from the eternal schooling of young people today.
“… no one is criticising the youth who are not starting to contribute until they are in their mid-twenties…”
Why should young people pay your “pension” (and mine) which you admit is actually a welfare payment?
And the youth today didn’t cause this problem, you and all “pensioners” did by keep voting for a non-funded “pension”, when you were told in the 1950s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and 15 years ago, that the system was incapable of meeting its obligations out of contributions, which is why we had the addition Graduated Pension, replaced by SERPS, then the opt-out of SERPS scheme, then State Pension 2.
Take responsibility for what you and all those who consistently voted for the Socialist greed-creed since 1945 – the desire by people for other people’s money to be taken by the coercive force of the State to serve their interests.
The state pension is a welfare payment. It is not money that has been in some way saved up and/or invested on behalf of the individual who eventually receives it.
NI contributions (and general taxation) taken from workers/businesses this year are used to pay state pensions this year. When there’s a shortfall the government borrows and future taxpayers will have to pay off the loan.
When we get our state pensions they will be paid for by taxing people still working/earning at the time. Civil service pensions are also funded this way.
Private pensions are mostly funded using money taken from the individual and employer during their employment and invested to grow in the capitalist system until the individual needs/wants it.
Edit: I’m sure you know this but it’s something that needs stating every time.
“The state pension is a welfare payment. It is not money that has been in some way saved up and/or invested on behalf of the individual who eventually receives it.”
This is very unfair on those who have worked all their lives and paid taxes. If the State pension is a welfare payment then governments should have provided an opt-out to those requiring such but they didn’t. Furthermore, the message put about by all governments has been that NIC’s helped to pay for these pensions except every bloody government since inception has treated NIC’s as simply ‘gravy.’
To make matters worse that one-eyed loon Broon broke the back of private pensions in 1997 when he was Chancellor with his removal of tax credits on dividends to pension funds which wiped £5 billion pa off those funds. That’s thirty years ago so what is the value in today’s money? And to make matters worse contributions to pensions are made from income that has already been taxed, that’s some racket.
Clear to see why Kneel passed an act of Parliament to secure his iwn pension isn’t it?
Unfair? Yes, as workers we were promised that when we pay for current state pensioners then when we retire we’ll be paid for by the then workers in our turn. Essentially it’s a Ponzi scheme that only pays out when more new ‘investors’ join the scheme hoping to get their payout from those that join later still. It becomes uneconomic when there are more drawing money out (and for longer) than those currently paying in.The big difference from Ponzi is that when it does become uneconomic the state has obliged itself to cover the costs through general taxation or borrowing.
The state pension and other welfare should be a safety net and not a substitute for individual prudence. If you don’t work, you should not live as well as those who do. If you don’t save for your future needs then you shouldn’t live as well in retirement as those who have saved. How the country gets from where we are to where we need to be on this issue is fraught. Any political party that moves too fast on this will be unpopular with those who lose out. Promising to break the triple lock on the state pension is… Read more »
No party has ever proposed s sensible system, so how could anybody vote for one?
Quite right. Very stupid to blame the people for the failure of government not to plan for paying the state pension by using NI. And entitlement to the state pension is governed by your NI payments record.
In England and Wales in 1966 the average age at death (the average number of years of life of all those who died that year, including infants and children) was 65.0 for men and 71.9 for women. The most common age at death excluding infants was 73 for men and 80 for women (in 1966 more boys aged under 1 died than men aged 73). Half of all deaths occurred under age 67 for men and 74 for women. I believe the state pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women. We can correct anyone who says that most people didn’t live long enough to collect their pensions.
Government has NO money. Loss of income to Government is simply a loss to taxpayers.
The first rule of solving a problem is to stop making matters worse.
So – immediately freeze all benefits. Then you can work through them and reinstate benefit increases (for inflation for instance) where justified. And then work through them and stop, limit or reduce those that cannot be justified.
Even then the cost of benefits will be substantial so repeat the process regularly until society no longer sees benefits as anything other than a safety net.
It’ll take years, so make a start now.
How about abolishing the welfare state and NHS?
Factoid: in 1948 pre-NHS, there were 1 150+ hospitals with 90 000 beds run by the voluntary sector = charity, for the “poor”. That was no cost to the taxpayer. Once the NHS took over these hospitals that cost landed on the taxpayer.
There were at the time about 1 550 municipal hospitals run by local authorities with 390 000 beds. These were funded by local councils out of the rates, also by charging some patients who could afford to pay, and a 40% block grant from Central Government.
When the NHS was launched, the whole cost fell on the Taxpayer.
And: 2 600 hospital with 480 000 beds pre-NHS is now 1 600 hospitals and 145 000 beds, the 1948 waiting list of 400 000 has become 7 million today.
Bang those pans.
The reason why welfare is out of control, is Government has been running a de facto national charity with forced donations, and a free all-you-can-eat welfare buffet for UK and the World’s citizens.
Yes. I like to pick and choose which charities I support.
£155 billion handed out annually in benefits, 34 million people in work.
That means a working person has, on average, £4,560 taken away from them every year and given to a someone claiming benefits.
The graph of who gets the benefits is predictable and yet shocking.
I honestly don’t know how there isn’t a revolution.
That means it’s actually a Ponzi scheme! But aren’t Ponzi schemes illegal?