I'm not sure what I have taken out of the system as a 62 year old:
Privately educated until 11. 5 years at grammar school, private 6th form, dropped out of university after a term, temporary work until spending a year abroad.
I started work aged 20 and worked like stink having ds at 34.5 when I returned to work part-time.for a year from when he was 4 months old (I stopped because he was ill). I then had a glorious seven years at home (no working tax credits) when I acted as vice chair of a local quasi statutory organisation, became Chair of the PTA, and ran Sunday school. Nursery vouchers were removed when DS needed them but brought back temporarily for DD. No free nursery, no free school meals during infancy.
I returned to work when dd was settled in reception. Locally, part-time, 18 hours a week for the first two years, starting over at the bottom because I had no degree and needed some professional quals. After two years I went full-time into an assistant professional role and the organisation paid for my professional quals, which I studied for in my own time. By the time I paid the au-pair to facilitate it, I was worse off than doing the part-time role (equivalent to civil service/LA grade 3). DH paid for me to top up my prof qual to a Masters for my 50th birthday!
The DC were privately educated from 8 and 13 respectively and we paid their uni fees and expenses. One has a PhD and has an academic role, the other is teaching. Neither have ever been out of work and neither have either claimed a penny.
DH similarly has worked since graduating/was qualified, from his mid to late 20s until the age of about 54/55 60+ hours per week. He still works full time but doesn't do more than 45/50 hours pw now. I also still work full-time and work 45/50 in a high stress job albeit a well paid one. I am on Annual.leave today, hence a long post after 8.30am.
Not a penny have we ever claimed except for child benefit which was universal. We have not depended on the NHS or used an NHS dentist. The DC may have had an occasional free eye test. We had to pay for their grommets, essential but refused on the NHS, their braces because they didn't meet the NHS bar and for every single exam they took at school.
I have 43 years of NI credits for the state pension but still fall slightly short of 35 years due to contracting out. I will get a full state pension if I work until 65. The local government occupational pension is a side effect of the decisions I made to work locally because of the children. Had I worked in the private sector and spent two hours a day commuting, I'd have earned probably an additional £150,000 at least over 20 years. I am grateful for the increase in pension age because it gave me a crack at having a second career.
To date the DC have claimed not a penny from the state.
Our parents, mothers born 1936, fathers 1929, also worked for most of their lives. DH's father was made redundant aged 55 in the early 80s and received an occupational pension, his mother retired from teaching aged 60 several years later. Not a penny did they claim or were they entitled to. My mother always had work in her field until her 30s when she started a small business and did my stepfather's paperwork which was not insubstantial. Mother stopped her business at about 56 when she took on caring for her elderly parents. FIL died aged 80, my father worked until 65 and died from cancer aged 69 (he didn't exactly benefit from 30 years of pension as many don't)
DH's and my grandparents also worked exceptionally hard. Mine worked until about 70 (farm), DH's retired at retirement age but his grandfather got a little job associated with his previous role and did it (2-3 hours a day) until he was 90.
Most of our contemporaries are similar.
DS and DIL, in their late 20s, earn about £75k between them. They are presently renting but even without help from us (which they will have - far more than I had) they have worked out that they could, together, buy a small flat on the outskirts of London. The money from their grandparents will go straight to the children when the time comes - we don't need it - it will help them.
In short for three generations my family have worked hard (men and women), have paid tax (60% in the 80s), my grandparents had a stinging tax bill in the 70s which resulted in a farm, held for four generations being sold, and not one of us has received a penny from the state in excess of our contributions (our grandparents and parents were all born before 1947 so didn't have the NHS for their whole lives). The 1947 Bevan promise was from cradle to grave. My grandmother became severely ill with Alzheimers from the mid 80s. When she needed nursing care in a nursing home, do you think the state willingly paid. No of course not.
Economies and property is cyclical. The turn of the Millenniels and Gen X will come once property crashes and will benefit from inflationary salary increases.
The resentment and ill placed envy, whingeing and jealousy on this thread is horrendous. But of course older people in this country have had so many more privileges than the generations behind them. Not.