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.

The 52.1% is the number of British adults who rely in some way on the state for their income.
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.

I work for a University earning 50k plus a year yet I am included as “relying on the state in some way”. People including the OP are just basing their opinion on the headlines and not actually reading who is included in the 52% including many people who are either working or studying.

They're just not getting it. Screaming but it is the pensioners is missing the entire problem. It does not matter who make up that 52%. It is growing and those who are bearing the burden are breaking under it.

Ambition is being battered and those who are net reliant on the State today and not helping to fund their State pensions tomorrow. It is a self defeating cycle. So if you want to focus on the pensioners, the problem is even more stark in terms of what we are storing up for ourselves in the future.

Before 2020, I doubt we had some many people (even excluding pensioners) relying on the State as they do now and the problem is not "the immigrants".

Inequality is a huge factor in unhappiness and the quality of life for people - i.e rich people hoarding all of the resources. People with money thinking that they are hard done by and shouldn't pay their fair share. My DH and I earn 6 figures. (well, he earns 6 figures and I top it up!) We could be paying more tax. The NHS is worth it.

Another problem is the rich hoarding houses and renting them at extortionate rates. People buying houses and flipping them to make more and more money. Housing being seen as investment, not a vital home, which should be used to house people, not enable people to get rich. People earning average or below average wages can't afford to pay rent or buy houses comfortably so they need to be topped up. As a teacher I was paying over half of my wage packet for a shitty house-share

It's greed. Greed is the killer, not people claiming what they're entitled to in order to keep a roof over their head.

That is probably true. Ideally we need to stop more people coming in that rely on benefits and concentrate on improving the lives and work prospects of the people already here. AI and Labour won't help this situation so we will be waiting until 2029 keeping everything crossed that something turns up...

It does not matter. It is unaffordable whoever it is. And if you think the solution to it being unaffordable is to tax people like me even more, then yes, the only option is to leave.

Not really. Look what labour is proposing to do to the disabled people who voted for them to try to stop the Tories from decimating the benefits many of them rely on because they’re unable to work. They’ve ended up with the same result, if not worse. Rishi Sunak must be kicking himself that he didn’t think of the one simple cut to PIP eligibility that will see thousands of genuine claims wiped out. His only comfort will be that there won’t be a penny saved because those costs, and more, will be passed on to social care.

How are people supposed to be socially mobile and ambitious when working even a full time job doesn't guarantee that you'll be able to keep a roof over your head?

The things that worry me the most are that things I got 'told' by the goverment keep changing.

So for example when I planned my future I took into account what age I would get my state pension and the fact it would keep in line with inflation.

When they keep changing this it makes me worry as I have built my plans around what they told me would be part of my retirement.

For example my state pension was 'fully paid up' when I was in my forties and it says I couldn't increase it even with further contributions.

With that safety net I left work to become a carer to my elderly parents (no benefits claimed as they paid me to do it from their savings).

I'm in my fifties now and living on my own savings till my first private pension kicks in at 55 or it might be 57 cos they keep moving that as well.

I've based all my calculations of how much private pension I needed to save and when I could stop working (to be a carer) based on how much state pension I would get and when.

When they keep moving that goal post and you are in middle age it is very worrying because how can you plan when things keep moving under you.

I also took into account what my costs would be (living frugually which I am fine with). That would have assumed there was an NHS and dentist services and ambulance services etc. I'm already paying private dental care which isn't something I expected to have to do and it appears the NHS might now be charged for (I can see some benefits to that but....again another change to my budgeting requirements which I have no control over).

So yes I planned to be self sufficient based on what they told me I could expect.

So can I rely on that or should I assume the state pension will keep moving further out until it becomes almost nothing.

I feel like part of retirement planning now requires a crystal ball and praying alot.

This.

Couldn't work out if the comment "if you're in such a high earnings bracket why do you feel the need to keep it all to yourselves and why do you think you shouldn't have to pay for things?" was being serious. Hopefully not.

I hope you’ve never claimed child benefit OP.

See the post below yours by @VioletandDill. Explains very nicely why it does matter who makes up that 52%.

So you don’t think anyone should work for the public sector because we can’t afford it? We’re still paying taxes you know. Should we just sack all the street cleaners, police officers, doctors & teachers? Who will teach all the young people who are trying to get out there to work and get jobs in the private sector?

Where did I say that I think the State needs to tax you more?!

Why shouldn't she? She should get as much as she can out. She's paying enough taxes.

In a way, I don't blame young people just opting to not work - people I know in their 20's and even 30's are either still at home with parents or in a house-share. There isn't much of a difference in their lifestyle whether they work an average paid job or not work at all.

I wonder how these stats compare to similar stats in Scandinavian countries (economies with a strong social component) or, say, Canada.

They can't get a job now that Employers NI and the increased workers rights have decimated the part time and starter jobs industry that young people rely on. Labour is not for the young.

It was perfectly serious l think. We’re a society and we all have to pay - from each according to his means, to each according to his need. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

There aren't going on for 70 million people in places like Norway. There are about 5 million.

So child benefit claimant good, every other benefit claimant bad ? You should only be able to take out what you put in ?

Crime but then the tax payer still pays when you are in prison!

@Quirkswork
Remember 2010-2024? Oh yes, everything was brilliant during that period…….austerity, Brexit, Johnson’s appalling government during covid, etc.
Labour are trying to deal with the fallout of all that Tory shite over the previous 14 years.
If Reform were to be elected Farage wants to spend 17bn on prisons, deportations etc with funding from scrapping HS2 (wasting what has already been spent) and scrapping net zero (after the much hotter summer weather we keep having in recent years).

So you don’t think it’s fair that people who have lots of money pay more tax than people who don’t have much?

I presume this has to do with anti Semitism. I do think that exists to a surprising degree in British society and it is inexcusable.

Economically, as Israeli residents you will be taxed on your worldwide income. I am sure you know, but others may not, that until very top brackets income taxes and VAT are a bit lower than the UK, VAT is a bit lower, and there is no IHT. But other taxes are a bit higher and professional salaries are notably lower.

To say nothing of the war

No. I mean it's everyone for themselves. Look at the junior doctors. They don't care about patient.lives. They just want more cash. The social contract, as I said at the start, has broken down. If I'm entitled to some cash I'm claiming it. I don't blame people who claim benefits if they are entitled to it. I blame the government (s) for putting people in the situation where they have to claim benefits in the first place which has caused this mess. And that's governments of both sides.

Labour are not sorting it out by going after SMEs with higher taxes. It’s why they’ve also gone for welfare cuts and are already eyeing up more tax rises.