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More than 300,000 families receive welfare benefits of more than £20,000 a year, figures reveal today.
It means the equivalent of a city the size of Bristol gets more in welfare than many typical wage-earners take home after tax.
The numbers of big-claiming households have soared since Labour came to office, despite government pledges to cut poverty and dependency.
The figure for those receiving more than £15,000 a year has doubled since 1997, from 600,000 to 1.2 million. And the number on more than £20,000 a year has trebled from 100,000 to 300,000. The true figures could be higher as tax credits are not included.
The median gross wage in Britain is £21,320 and 40 per cent of workers earn less than £17,984 a year. Their take-home pay then has tax and National Insurance deducted.
Theresa May, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “These figures show the shocking growth of a dependency culture under Labour.”
Taxpayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: “It's important to have a welfare safety net but the system is now a permanent crutch for far too many people. The system must be structured to encourage work and learning, whereas at the moment it actively discourages people to work hard to do better for themselves.”
But Welfare Reform Minister Jim Knight said: “The amount of benefits a family receives is entirely dependent on its individual circumstances.”
Other figures today showed spending on council tax benefit in Britain up by more than £1 billion since Labour came to power.
Data adjusted to current prices showed an increase from £3.14 billion in 1997-98 to £4.16 billion in 2007-08.
Junior work and pensions minister Helen Goodman said the figures included all council tax benefit, whether funded by central or local government. She was responding to a Commons question from shadow housing minister Grant Shapps.
Reader views (33)
No surprise in these statistics.
NuLieBour rely on the votes of those scroungers loitering with intent in the ever-lengthening dole queues.
- Reuben Camara, Plot 1, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR
And, how many of you moaners voted for this lot?
- Frederick, London
Break down the numbers by race and I'm not saying socialists are racists bigots or anything ..but I'm willing to bet your house the majority of welfare "winners" are not from Scotland or Germany 
- Rusty, Edmonton Canada
The compassionate policy of the Labor is a travesty to allow bankers and upper clase getting the big slice of the cake.Happiness is comformism without cultural and intelectual growth.
- Edward, London UK
So it really is as bad as we think. We've got to withdraw these benefits otherwise no one will go back to work and we'll end up importing yet more labour. How about paying their heating bills and providing food stamps? I wonder what this lot actually spend their money on?
- Susie Blake, London
Ok there are about 1 million jobs and 6 million unemployed. So if EVERY job was filled, that would still leave 5 million people.
Benefits include workers who claim Child Tax Credits, Child Allowance, Free Prescriptions, subsidised Health Care ( NHS ) , Morgage relief and numerouse Tax breaks.
So you are a ' Dolee'....wake up.
The sole justification for immigration that I can see is that we need workers and younger people to support us when we get old.
Take away all immigrants and one might find there are 3 million jobs.
Having Babies is just about the only industry left in this Country where we actually MAKE something and how those little Dolebabes will help you in your Care Homes.
In fact having babies should be a 'paid employment' at 200 quid per child if you believe the statistics of the need for an increse in the population put out.
Enough of this Dole Bashing, it will probably be you on the dole next year when cuts and another recession arrives,,then you will know the truth.
If a job pays 5 pounnd an hour and nobody want to do it the wages MUST be to low..as you never have the problem with jobs paying 40, 000 a year. What do we do, not give the wage suitable to the job but imnport cheap labour to do the work,.,this is the governments way of keeping wages artifically low and its the low paid everytime that suffer,. Now with the EEC..watch out across the employment board,..no job is safe and no point gripping when your job is taken by an EEC Citizan.
- Clif, London
The BNBP British National Benefit Party otherwise known as the Labour party......should be and will be Voted out at the next election....send them into oblivion.....Never to rise again......
- Themanoftruth, United Kingdom
Why does this government not do anything to discourage parents who have no jobs from having more kids? How do you get these people into work when they have so many children that they can't make ends meet when they start working? I know the borough of Tower Hamlets has even knocked down two properties, so that these large families can be housed. The decent working people are left to fend for themselves. Government has finally started to hold it's hand up, although it's too late now. They have allowed decent people to lose hope with the politicians from the main parties. That's why the BNP are going to receive a lot of votes at the next elections. When are the politicians going to speak the truth to the people and tell the nation the state of things and how we will all have to work very hard to get this country out of this mess. Whoever is the next government will not have BT, BA and Brtish Steel to privatize. We'll still need the money though and I don't think we can borrow much more.
- Karim Ullah, London, UK
Sam,
Do really think these people are all poor ?
Plenty of benefits recipients have other sources of
income.
Also producing a child every year for money appeals
to certain, in my opinion, low types.
If you read the Young Foundation report, you will learn
that millions of pounds of benefits cash goes abroad
to buy luxuries for extended family members, including
cars & farmland.
Welfare is why we are the number one target for asylum & immigration,
bearing in mind our size.
- British Not Racist, Reading
We now understand how our council tax has gone up by nearly 270% since 1995
- John-John, London
The MP’s who fiddled their expenses are our Countries worst offenders. Add their fiddling finances together and the total comes to a bloody disgrace. How some have escaped a prison sentence shows our legal system is bent and broke.
- Nick, UK Yorkshire
How many are genuine & not benefit cheats??
How many were born here & or contributed Tax/NI??
Yes you & I already know the answer to both these questions!!!!
- L, London, England
there is the money for the troops. No helicopters for them but plasma tv's for the work shy. Pres. Clinton passed welfare reform here 20 years ago. Its time the UK did the same. Set a 5 year life time maximum for healthy people who dont work and see how fast they find a job. It worked here. It will work there.
- Allan Poulter, hilton head south carolina USA
This has been happening for some time. Ken Livingstone boasts he's turned London into a socialist state within a state.
Nearly all the Eastern Europeans turn up with a trophy child and get a house where they let of rooms at about £150 each. Small 3 bed semi 3 beds 2 receptions all turned into bedroom and many garages are converted. That equates about £1600 benefits £1800/2000 room lets per month. Lots of Zloty's for nothing except moving to London and voting Loony-Labour.
It won't be long before only those on welfare and the rich will be able to afford to live in London.
Communism does not work it only looks on in envy but saying nothing in my view is a crime.
- Mike, London
Sam. I get your point, but you missed the point of this article. But just for the sake of argument - if that banker getting 200k pa quit, that would mean about a few 'households', for want of a better word, lose out on their benefits. I doubt they could all become bankers overnight.
No I'm not a banker
- Sb, London
So how do you apply?
- Don Raj, West london, England
This is still only half the cost of our presence in Afganistan.Which would people prefer,killing Afgans or helping the poorer sections of society and would it be any different under the Tories,I think not, and we know that the Taxpayers Alliance is a Tory front organisation
- Baldini, London England
I find it hard to believe that the number of families receiving that amount is as low as that. Several years ago, one of my sisters was receiving benefits for herself and two children. She was training for a profession at that time and all credit to her, she has been self employed for quite a while. We worked out at the time, that to obtain the same monetary reward by working, she would need a job paying a salary of around 25,000 pounds as her benefits were worth 20,000 pounds.
- Paul Bradford, Monflanquin, France
I work 60 hours a week on a low hourly rate to cover basic expenses after being made redundant from a well paid job. Whilst out of work all I could get was £56.40 Job Seekers allowance and council tax allowance. There was no-one at the Job Centre interested in other monthly expenses. I'm amazed at how these people qualify when they have never/hardly contributed into the system.
When going through the humiliating experience of signing on every fortnight, I saw numerous young male and female
'clients' going into the Job Centre for emergency loans to cover the cost of new prams etc for their ever expanding families. When trying to leave the premises you have to push your way through them and friends smoking and drinking cans of lager. How do they pay for it?.
- Trevor, Herts
Why are these benefits so high? -When I lost my small business after thirty years of employing up to a dozen people at some times, and all of us paying full tax and Nat Ins., all I was entitled to was £36 a fortnight for six months. -Then cut off without a penny because my wife earned (just) more than £18k. -I wonder just how many of these 'benefits recipients' have actually contributed anything to the system? -It seems to have been a waste of time in my case. -Oh!, I could have got more if I'd lied and claimed to be separated from my wife. -Why do we indulge a culture where it doesn't pay to be honest.
Successive gov'ts seem to have got this one completely upside down!
- Huggy, Cumbernauld Scotland
Why is a family allowed to have more than two children yet recieve child benefit for the third,fourth,fifth,sixth child.
No politician has the courage of their convictions to challenge this culture for fear of reprisals
- Barry Deane, Richmond, United Kingdom
I started work in 1952 and retired in 2000. I had 6 weeks on the dole. I moved around a lot I kept all my P60's and P45's back to 1978. I saved really hard. If I had not paid so much tax etc I would have saved it because I saved all my 'surplus' income. Using my Pc I easily calculated that these extra savings would have been well over £2 million by the time I quit work.
So glad to see the government making such good use of MY MONEY! Not.
- Anglo, Sussex UK
Our "free for allcomers" social security scheme is such a success that no other country,even in Europe, copies it. Has nobody noticed the country is broke? The system requires urgent radical reform,so that the freeloaders no longer ride on the backs of those who work.No income support payments should be available in areas where unfilled work vacancies exist,and we must withdraw the quasi-benefits like EMA,child benefit & tax credit.Many of the problems our broken society arise from the creation of a non-working,benefit-dependent underclass.Work provides self-respect,dignity and pschological well-being.How did we allow things to get like this?
- Glyn Harvey, Winchester,UK
Andrew, London.
Spot-on!
- Brian, Bristol
Good to see this out in the open.
Two people in my immediate family have never worked in 30 years, but enjoy a much better lifestyle, and many more children than me.
Having worked and paid tax/NI for 30 years as, I feel very aggrieved !
There's nothing to stop either of my relatives working, they just choose not too - after all, they'd have to earn a fortune to pay for their current lifestyles !
- Cap, London
Nobody should be better off on benefits than the equivalent size family who pay their way. Housing benefit and council rents are subsidies from the taxpayers who are paying for their mortgage or paying rent on the open market. Nobody mentions the fact that council housing can be 'inherited', regardless of the financial situation of those who inherit. No 'inheritance tax' there. If one adds up that subsidy for, say 25 - 30 years, it adds up to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
- Beatriz, London
Well its become a essential bennefit for lots of working people due to the high rents in London,250 pw is about the cheapest rent you could find for a one bed flat,ok if you wont a capital city devoid of nurses,bus drivers,bin men,firemen,train drivers,road sweepers etc etc,cut or stop paying it,but the result will be a City that cant function and it will become a city no body will wont to or even can live in.As long as we maintain the idea that property is for speculation and investment this benefit is essential.Its not the benefit that needs attention,its how property is valued as a speculative venture that needs a re think.PS Andrew, London,its not the labour party at fault,If the Tory's are elected it will only get worse as that is the party of the speculators.
- Kev, London-UK
£6,000,000,000, i.e. £6 billion's worth of welfare payments while our schools, hospitals and army go down the tubes. If one is employed we are taxed to the hilt and if we are employed in the private sector we are berated if we do not save towards our own pensions which may be beause we are paying towards the public sector's gold plated pensions and supporting this government's welfare state. Enough already.
- Patricia, LONDON
I am absolutely horrified by these statistics.
I work hard and very often don't even take a lunch break and I take home a lot less than £20,000/year.
- Tanya, London
Unbelievable.
- James, London
So that's £4.16 billion spent amoungst the poorist 1.4 million people in the UK.
How does that compare to the £200 billion spent bailing out the banks this year?.
How many city workers receiving £200k in bonuses this year would like to swap and live on benifits instead?.
- Sam, London,UK.
What confounds me is how we continue to subsidise people who continue to have children whilst on benefit.That would be a good statistic how many children born into benefit families since labour came to power.
- Terry, London
Labour long ago ceased to be the party for the working person. It is the party for the scrounger.
- Andrew, London
