To think that there is no hope here?

[Taxed]

52.6% of UK individuals are reliant on the State (that is 35 million people). Only 47.4% are net contributors. How did we get here?

AIBU to think that the UK is now a declining economy that will never recover if this continues to be the case?

I am 49 and a high earner (just shy of the top 1%). My husband is also a high earner and we are thinking of leaving. We don't know where but we know we have to as the situation in the UK is getting worse not better. The only thing that is keeping us here is our son, who is still in secondary school. I am actively encouraging him to consider a future outside of the UK.

I genuinely feel that being ambitious and successful is not worth it in the UK. People hate you for it and want to see you penalised. They think that whatever you do to earn the money it must be easy and a breeze. That you are greedy and need to be made to pay for doing well. Just last week, I heard that the government might be thinking of implementing a charge, payable by high earners, to access the NHS. Everything is about taxing the already heavily taxed even more and few want to face up to the fact that this is unsustainable when you have most of your people relying on the State to live.

People complain about the immigrants but they make up a tiny proportion of 35 million.

I feel disliked for doing well and just can't see a future here and it is making me angry and sad. I believe in having a welfare state, in helping those who are in need but 52.6%? The country is on its knees when most of its people are in need. That is like a developing country not a developed and thriving economy.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm just tired, sad and have just about lost hope of enjoying life in the UK.

One son paid 12% tax in Bermuda. The other son 40% in Sweden. Both places had pluses and minuses. So research carefully @Taxed .

Remember you're not stuck anywhere forever so spread your wings. This life is not a rehearsal.

You’ve not understood the research OP, it clearly states that:

This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:

• receiving the state pension
• receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
• Higher Education students;
• employed by a Higher Education institution;
• public sector employees.

So 6.15 million of these people are employed by the public sector, 400k + of higher education staff, 2 million students, 12.95 million on state pension. The number of unemployed people is less than 2 million.

This research clearly states that they have taken into account the full pay of people working in the above sectors as ‘benefit’ because it’s coming out of the public purse. I would suggest looking at other countries as a comparison.

I'm amazed that @Taxed created this thread without being familiar with how the 52% was broken down!

She keeps telling anyone who asks to look it up themselves but presumably she doesn't know as she keeps asking: How many of the 52% could really be pensioners??

The answer is just under 13million are pensioners!

it's 25% discount, that is a quarter, wish all us single people did get a third off. I live alone in a Band A house and pay more than I would if I shared a Band D. One person, one income but 75% of the cost facing a household with two or more adults. When I was working I was paying more council tax than my manager who earned £15k a year more than me.

Looking at how wealth has accumulated at in the highest earners in the UK since 1980 suggests that the top 5th in this country is doing just fine.

Billionaire Britain 2025 - Equality Trust share.google/Y84L3GNihilZa6UG6

The most awful thing seems to me that, on the other hand, many people are not paid enough to live and have to be subsidised by government.

Plenty of money is being accumulated in the UK with a system that supports that. It's not going to the bottom 5th of earners.

The UK government, Labour or Conservative, just plays patsy being blamed for whatever gets the most headlines so the systemic bias of the UK towards wealth accumulation can continue.

I notice the Adam Smith 52% is used as a headline (even though it is grossly distorting, as has been outlined by PPs.).

Even if you are working for the state you are getting your wages paid by taxpayers. Where I live over 60% of the workforce is employed by the state leaving only 40% as wealth creators. That's no good. It should be far higher.

Plus I would like to point out our public services are utter shite so I'm not sure what that 60% have been doing...

I’m a boomer and retired at 66. Not wealthy, no buy to let properties and live in a modest semi. I’d love to know why MN thinks we’re all living high on the hog when everything is relative to its time. To get a state payout of 40 years I’d have to live to 106. And if you think boomers are responsible for the benefit bill l suggest you drop your prejudice, open your eyes and look around you.

This is a great idea. Let me know how it goes.

To clarify. This is what the ONS says:
In financial year ending (FYE) 2023:

• Median equivalised household income in the UK before taxes and benefits was £37,300, increasing to £39,700 after taxes and benefits.
• The richest fifth of people's mean equivalised household income before taxes and benefits (£114,300) was 11.6 times larger than the poorest fifth (£9,800); however, this gap reduced to 3.4 times larger (£82,200 and £24,500, respectively) after taxes and benefits.
• Original income inequality (before taxes and benefits) decreased by 2.9 percentage points to 47.2% since FYE 2022, while final income inequality (after taxes and benefits) decreased by only 2.1 percentage points to 27.7%, highlighting the redistributive effect of taxes and benefits decreased marginally between years.
• Cash benefits for the poorest fifth of households remained in line with FYE 2022 after accounting for inflation, largely attributed to the effect of cost of living payments.
• The proportion of people living in households receiving more in benefits than they paid in taxes decreased from 53.6% to 52.6%; this is the continuation of a downward trend following a sharp increase during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (FYE 2021).

Effects of taxes and benefits on UK household income - Office for National Statistics

Net recipients and net contributors
The term “net recipients” refers to people living in households receiving more in cash benefits and benefits in kind than is being paid in direct and indirect taxes, while “net contributors” refers to people living in households paying more in direct and indirect taxes than they receive in cash benefits and benefits in kind.

Do you count landlords who receive rent from housing benefit claimants in your claim of “reliant on the state”?

Because if they hadn’t hiked rents to beyond affordable and bought up cheap housing, then maybe more people would be able to live on their salaries.

good luck
I hope you find your promised land

👏👏👏

Especially within the context of the roll back of winter allowance and slashing of disability benefits.

"The proportion of people living in households receiving more in benefits than they paid in taxes decreased from 53.6% to 52.6%; this is the continuation of a downward trend following a sharp increase during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (FYE 2021)"

OP presented ONS stats very differently for obvious reasons.

You can insult as much as you like. You clearly are not getting the point. Even if it includes pensioners the problem is no less a problem. Whatever the constituent parts the problem is that the majority of adults are net reliant. That makes 35 million plus adults. Do you know how many of that are pensioners, probably about 1/3rd. Not all of these pensioners were net contributors in their lifetime.

Regardless, taxing the remaining 47% ever and ever more is not the solution. Penalising ambition is not the solution. Shouting and denigrating high income earners as dim, DailyMail readers, etc, etc is of no use because the problem remains whether I am dim or smart.

If we have more people who are pensioners (and that figure is set to rise by just under 2 million by 2035) we need more people to be net contributors for us to take care of our pensioners. The country needs more net contributors not less and taxing the existing net contributors ever more, will kill of ambition, cause people to move abroad and in the end will only lead to more people relying on the state.

@lifeonmars100 oh gawd, you're right, it is! Ridiculous, not to mention my council tax band is already ridiculously high for the size and value of my property compared to many others.

Stop talking sense please. This is MN.

Dubai is full of people
like you, OP. You might enjoy it there.
Or perhaps we need another nice pandemic to wipe out our elders in our ageing population, cos those m’fuckers are getting pensions, subsidies, and hammering the NHS with their health needs.

I'm not sure that the OPs argument has failed actually. If the argument is the unaffordability of UK PLC (no matter how the 52% is made up) then her point is completely valid. What did Mr Micawber say?

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

So that's what's happening as far as I can see. Misery.

This is not a pensioners problem. This is a not enough people are contributing to the coffers problem, which in turn means many eventual pensioners are not helping to fund their state pensions. A terrible circle that means more and more problems being stored down the line.

Why does the bold underlining make a difference?

Yes this, these are the figures which I think the op is referring to.

It's 12.6 million pensioners who are claiming state pension. How can you not know that?!

I wish people could get it into their heads that they end up paying MORE in tax when you have large numbers in poverty. That when you say "I don't want my taxes to go to families who have too many children" THOSE CHILDREN DON'T JUST DISAPPEAR.

I suspect that some of the money we're now giving in PIP and other sickness benefits could have been avoided if the receivers had grown up in better housing and had a better diet.

During all the years of Conservative rule/austerity/ Brexit there were constant warnings about the long term damage that would be done and how it would all prove more expensive in the long run. And guess what.....

I presume you’re in banking or similar OP, where numbers are massaged and facts taken out of context to gain commercial advantage.
I’m a highest earner, I have never thought myself anything other than lucky TBH. I’ve seen what poverty looks like. And no, I don’t actually resent my tax going on kid’s education, healthcare or pensions. Although it pisses me off when it’s used to bail out banks, or to give advantages to big Corps.