More than half of Brits are ‘reliant on the state’, think tank says
More than half of the UK population are reliant on the state for income, a leading think tank has said.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall on Tuesday announced a string of welfare reforms aimed at getting Brits back into the workforce.
But the Adam Smith Institute (ASI) has suggested that the number of those reliant on the state will only rise as Labour’s tax raid on businesses will make more people claim benefits.
The think tank cites people who are either in receipt of welfare or the state pension, or who are employed in the public sector.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch gave her backing to the report and claimed that “a culture of dependency beyond welfare” had emerged as she said the UK’s “bureaucratic class” had ballooned.
“Many talented people [are] working in the unproductive parts of the public sector and working on compliance with government regulations in the private sector,” she said.
“An increasing reliance on state subsidy and regulation is holding back enterprise and growth.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has declared his ambition to crack down on quangos and slash compliance costs for businesses.
But in its “State Reliance Index” report, the ASI said a continuos increase in regulation was behind a steady rise in the number of human resources and planning sector employees.
It cited a report in HR Magazine from 2022 that showed HR had grown four-times faster between 2011 and 2022 compared to previous decades, and warned that the government may have to raise taxes to pay for public sector employees.
The pro-free market think tank urged the government to go further in its welfare spending reforms by cutting the state pension, which could cost the taxpayer billions more in the next few years.
“The results from the State Reliance Index are astonishing, but hardly surprising,” Sam Bidwell, the author of the report, said.
“They are the inevitable result of decades of government meddling in the economy and our lives.”
He also warned that the number of those who are reliant on the state in some way is likely to be higher given that subsidised private sector jobs were not accounted for.
“We should not demonise those who rely on the state. After all, there are many reasons why someone is on Universal Credit, there are many pensioners who were productive taxpayers throughout their working lives, and there are many public sector workers who work hard in the national interest.”
“But we have to wake up to the fact that an ever-shrinking pool of taxpayers is having to prop up the government’s vast spending commitments,” he added.