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.

Well pardon me for being a lone, working parent who is entitled to some Universal Credit because my job doesn't pay enough. Must be an absolute thorn in your side 🙄

The only thing that makes me feel despair is the rise of racism as a part of mainstream party politics. Frankly horrific.

It's not the politicians, waving banners, setting fire to cars, throwing bricks at hotels though is it.

Yes, I was encouraging the OP to leave the UK as it is so awful for her. But I wasn’t very polite about it.

I have family members currently seeking a back-up plan of where they wish to move their family to as they are worried about the safety of their kids with the current rhetoric and changes in mindset across Europe.

Some may call them hysterical but I get it.

No, they just set the tone, and the unwitting do the rest.

Every country has its pros and cons. E.g. I lived previously in Spain and Poland. Spain has this laidback lifestyle and an amazing cuisine, but wages/education system are abysmal. In Poland you can live in a big, beautiful villa with a big garden/farm at a fraction of the UK price and everything is so cheap, but kids will be stressed out at very demanding schools/difficult language and there is war behind the border. And the free NHS is somewhat unique - you usually have to either pay in cash or pay your taxes/be employed to have any kind of (good) healthcare anywhere else in the world.

Of you go then .

I don’t think OP was using a person’s net contribution to assess the value of their life. She was using the percentage of people “reliant on the state” to assess the health of the UK economy.

The country is a mess. Nothing works. Immigration out of control. Values gone. We have had a similar discussion. Free speech being eroded.

Yes but it’s the politicians that horrify me. Rioting bullies are just the symptom of glass fuckers.

Personally I like a more ethnically and culturally diverse population.

Judging by some of the comments on this thread toward benefit recipients It’s not a compassionate society now. Of course work should be encouraged, that’s a given. What’s harder is encouraging employers to pay better wages so the tax payer isn’t left footing the bill.

We have hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people claiming benefits who could probably work with the right support, but that support is costly and subject to ever decreasing budgetary constraints because it’s not seen as important enough. And denigrating the disabled in the press and the media - calling them idle scroungers and benefit cheats - doesn’t help when you then come to try to persuade employers to give them a chance. It also doesn’t. Help that the wealthy have systematically bought up property for buy to let and ordinary hard working people are left struggling to pay exorbitant rents, which again are subsidised by the tax payer, out of necessity.

We’re running on greed at every level, and it’s this that has to change before anything else can. Just because you stop supporting a need, doesn’t mean that need disappears - all that happens is that the bill for that need is shifted somewhere else at increased cost.

No, it’s their policies. They create the brickbats and leave others to throw them.

@StarlightRobot nobody is saying all rich people should leave. They just don’t agree with the rhetoric that OP is spouting. Loads of rich people on here have voiced their willingness to pay their taxes. Those that don’t want to pay are free to live wherever they like it’s not like the UK is keeping them captive. Like others have said even James Dyson is back with his tail between his legs 😂

Muppet

Double the minimum wage…. I wonder how many would come out of your stats then.

I do a pretty stressful and essential job. I am reliant on universal credit.

Im never going to be rich and you need me doing my job

Create more ways of incentivising people other than wealth.

if we name a public library after you will you stay OP….. and pay a higher tax to help redistribute money? What is your net income that you are leaving you in existential despair?

If you're not earning it doesn't mean you're relying on the state. I'm 54 and retired, and don't claim anything, so you can't jump to conclusions.

It starts at home but too many people’s homes are failing them.

That’s part of the problem, but there are many and varied situations which don’t allow for opportunities to be taken up. The school leaver who has no choice but to work to help support the family. The child who is a carer to a disabled parent. The single mother who works three jobs and has no energy left for anything else. And many more. These are all contributing factors. Where is their ‘guidance’ ? Yo speak as though it’s easy to work your way up. It isn’t. And I can see why you are thought of as staunchly middle class - your upbringing may not be, but your views certainly are.

brilliant!!

Are you a homeowner OP? If so then government intervention in the free market will have raised and maintained your house value and thus your financial security, wealth and ability to function better in society due to having more secure or suitable housing. That very intervention on your part will have made it impossible for others, despite their best efforts, to have buying power in the market. It is your state benefits that will have made them more likely to need support, or perhaps they get no support but are just much worse off so you can get your benefits. Perhaps they are paying huge private rents and suffering lifelong financial insecurity to support you getting your home value handout.

Or have you worked in a setting where the profits that may your larger salary are enabled by the hard work on many on minimum wage or insecure contracts?

I am not trying to disagree with your overall point really, just saying that it isn’t as clear as you think who is a net contributor. The waters are much more muddied, and often those who are doing well are actually benefiting from a system that holds back the very people they think should be doing better.

Where do you think you’ll go?

@Taxed I wholeheartedly believe in a welfare state. What I don't believe is right is when 52% of adults and growing are net-reliant on the state

This is part of the reason you’re getting so much flack on the thread. Not only is the 52% part of a downward trend and not ‘growing’ as you seem to think, but its made up of several different components, many of which don’t support your narrative.

The fact this figure comprises of public sector employee wages is pretty nonsensical.

Clearly this is rage bait.

And again. You’re blaming the victims. We have large and wealthy companies in the UK who are paying crap wages their employees can’t survive on, and offloading large parts of their wage bills onto the taxpayer by way of UC top ups. How is that the fault of the employees ? How is that a way of life when it’s actually out of their hands ?

So what do you propose we do with the surplus special cases?

There are over 1.5 million adults in the UK with a learning disability. 99% are dependent on state support, because the number of £50k jobs available to an adult with an IQ of 55 and a co-occuring condition like downs syndrome or autism aren't exactly high.

Then you have a further 2.9 million with conditions that can affect their ability to work at the same pace as a non-disabled person, or where symptoms wax and wane and make regular predictable employment difficult. Everything from gioblasticomas to MS (300k diagnosed), to rheumatoid arthritis (700k), MND, schizophrenia (300k), bi polar disorder (280k), agressive cancers, blindness, spinal stenosis, ankylosing spondylitis (200k), and many more. 1 in 6 people in the UK have a disability.

add on a further 700k+ million adults with dementia, requiring attendance allowance, or PIP if under the age of 68. Employers are hardly queueing up to hire them!

Are you suggesting we focus government spending on a program to uplift and create opportunities for the 1 in 6, opportunities which give them the ability to work towards becoming net contributors? Hmm?

Or are you suggesting we just throw 'em all into a woodchipper so you get to pay a little less tax and Tesco can continue to make 3 billion a year in profits while bribing the goverment to top up it's staff with Universal Credit payments?

Couldn’t have put it better myself. Well said.