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.

Indeed. If Reform get in, in a few years time I will be going anywhere else that will take us as they will absolutely tank the country far worse than we've seen in the last 15 years.

I am so tired of the turn the UK is taking in terms of a split between “taxpayers” and people who can’t help but require benefits because that’s how fucking capitalism works…
You earn what you can while you can, you can stockpile wealth but the one thing no economic structure has in its back pocket is whst to do with those unable to work to full capacity or at all.

52.6% sounds like a really high number but "reliant on the state" does not equal unemployed and many many working people make up that figure, any parent (earning under 100k) with a child in childcare (including primary school kids with wraparound childcare) will make up part of that figure if they're claiming tax free childcare. There are a myriad of benefits that can be claimed which would automatically put you in that category even if you are working full time and "contributing". All pensioners are included in that figure (that accounts for almost 13m of the 35 million). It's a sensationalised figure intending to cause outrage but the reality of the situation is not as dire as it sounds.

As I said to the OP earlier, stop reading the DM.

You are absolutely right and it's bad. The biggest problem we face is that too few people are doing a really hard day's graft - there has been a massive deterioration in the way people conduct their daily work over my working life. Yes it will be hopeless unless someone inspires everyone to get back to work and put their backs into it, the economy just cannot compete. DH and I are currently implementing our plan to live elsewhere having both been in the top 1% of earners for the past four decades. Just can't face paying all that tax any more - for what?

Fuck off you think living in a war zone is better than living in the UK.

Off you pop then!

It’s not how capitalism works. It’s how math works. No amount of rainbows and fairies and fluffy ‘feels’ about being kind pays for real stuff.

Welcome to reality.

Which of the points I made do you disagree with though?

This. It will inevitably end as a benefit bashing thread.

I'm also tired and sad at living in a society where people like you and your H earn ten/twenty times that of other people who I guarantee will work just as hard if not harder than you. I don't know what you do, but whatever it is, it doesn't make you so much more important than anyone else that you 'deserve' to be that much better off. Everyone in society who works contributes. Some through their labour, the essential drudge work we'd fall apart without, others through their taxes. If you no longer want to contribute to this society, then you should leave. Be glad you are privileged enough to have the choices. People who don't are no less deserving than you.

How original. That ‘slur’ has never been used before.

If they are moving over there as West Bank settlers, it is likely they will be very insulated from the war and will probably have an absolutely lovely life in whatever house they have nicked, with the full support of the IDF behind them.

People are asking about the constituent parts of the statistics. Does it matter? The point is regardless of who sits within that figure, it is unaffordable and way too high. The billions in shortfall to fund it and the need for radical measures that our welfare state never thought it would need to do, is very telling. 52% and growing is unsustainable regardless of who make up this figure.

The figure cannot be zero but 52% and growing? The solution cannot be to tax the decreasing numbers who are net contributors more and more. All this does is shrink the economy and increase the that 52%. Our economy has not grown according to the latest figures.

I don't know what the solution is. What I know is that the country is declining and it is getting harder to be motivated to do well here.

If we do not leave, we would be better off being less successful.

She said "safer". Presumably she is Jewish so I don't think she is the only one that finds a lot of people in the UK threatening at the moment. That's another thing that needs sorting out.

You didn’t have to receive this and do a self assessment. You just shouldn’t have claimed it at all. Often people do as they think it’s worth more to have in their pockets for a year when in reality it’s a ballache. That’s on you if you claimed it in the first place. You can choose not to like most higher earners do

I think you need to take a hard look at how those stats are calculated.

Also can you name a few places with better prospects- the only places I might consider living would be France (but only once my kids are older) or Scandinavia and they have their own issues. Plus have you seen tax rates in the Scandinavian countries? I wouldn’t move to places which deliberately try to attract the rich with low taxes because frankly they are not great in terms of a functioning society. Then you’ve got vast areas where climate change is starting to take a toll.

I’m not saying things are perfect here. We’ve definitely got issues with young people not being able to cope with life, and some areas having horrific levels of economic inactivity but I think there are ways to solve it. These do not involve believing every headline you read about benefits scroungers and immigrants.

Personally I think having high earners get some kind of subsidised health insurance is actually a very good idea. I’d also increase maternity benefits and sort out some proper childcare funding which actually works to keep women in the workplace to start off with. Then I’d look at education- why SEN children are being failed and why so many kids are coming out of school without decent qualifications.

There are umpteen other threads like this on MN. There has been a big uptick in them since last July.

I don't understand why all the high earners who want to leave the UK feel the need to announce it on MN.

HI OP, can you help me work out if I am a burden on the state. Always worked, always paid income tax and still pay it on my pension so have been contributing for about 58 years and will contribute until I die. I know it is nothing like the contribution that you make but it is proportional to my income.

@Taxed if you think doing a self assessment in the UK to pay back CB is a hassle you have only reinforced my impression that moving abroad and dealing with all the new systems is not for you.

If we could wave a magic wand and live anywhere we would move to Seattle in a heartbeat.

I don’t know if we can get into America, we could work there for a bit, not a problem, we are going to try and persuade the kids to move across the Atlantic

But if money and immigration laws were not an issue we would move to Seattle.

I just wish they'd fuck right off.

Full disclosure: I live in Australia but pay taxes in the UK and am sick to the back teeth of the "net contributor" threads and posts.

Anyone would think it was bots posting this whiny shite.

The U.S.?! 😂😂😂😂😂😂

So is the nonsense that people keep repeating. People who have, not the slightest understanding of the PIP system, but will spread misinformation, all the same.

Yes I was wondering what source the OP used for her data… it has a slight whiff of Daily Mail about it 😂