Average UK household gets £147 per week in ‘welfare’

The average UK household gets £146.79 per week in welfare (social security benefits and tax credits) or £7,633 per year.  That average is for every household, all 28.5 million of them and so includes billionaires and millionaires and not just the stereotypical poverty porn TV household.

The average UK household gets two lots of the single persons dole of £73.10 per week!  As the average UK household is in paid employment …

Did you think the benefit scrounger was just those out of work, the indolent stereotypes that adorn our television screens in low-cost poverty porn TV!

Here’s some official government data on the subject that reveals this

The majority of ‘welfare’ goes to the pensioner as you can see and the average UK household even one that includes no pensioners gets £3000 per year in state pension, as well as £22 per year in over 75’s TV licences and around £6.30 per year in Discretionary Housing Payments.  The average UK home gets £155 per year in dole (JSA) yet gets £864 per year in Housing Benefit and despite 60% of UK households being home owners too.

The percentage of GDP that the UK spends on ‘welfare’ is also surprising when looked at by various prime ministers.

Thatchers welfare spend averaged 9.3% of GDP

Majors welfare spend averaged 10.03% of GDP

Blair and Brown averaged 10.3%

The Cameron coalition averaged 11.9% from 2010 to 2015

The May welfare spend is 11.05% of GDP

Those Cameron and May figures belie the superficiality of the Tories in we have more people in work than ever before claims which, while correct, also reveal that the welfare spend is now so much higher than in was under Labour and reveals that the UK is a low pay economy in which the state subsidises low wages like never before.

One example is that in 2010 the Cameron government inherited (ah remember that term!) £2.8 billion in Housing Benefit to those in work.  That figure is now £5.8 billion and shows precisely how the state subsidises low paying UK employers!

If work will always pay more as IDS frequently stated – and subsequent DWP ministers recite as mantra – it is because the state bails out low paying UK employers by giving their employees more in welfare.

The Cameron government paid out almost 16% more in welfare than the previous Brown government and the May government is still spending 7% more in welfare than the Blair / Brown years in GDP terms.  So much for the Tory jobs miracle that is another of the superficial mantras were are force fed eh?

Facts are pesky as I always say and numbers are always facts.

If you think the above is bad note well it makes no comment on the fact that Universal Credit will cost around £33 billion more per year to the welfare spend as it guarantees 100% take-up of entitlement (see here for the official government figures) which increases the welfare spend by a further 15%.

So much for the Tories welfare reforms eh!