A report claiming a majority of us receive more in benefits than we stump up in tax made headlines yesterday. The analysis produced by the think tank Civitas contends that 36 million Britons, or 54 per cent, live in households that get more out than they put in. This finding may well appeal to those who reckon the country consists of lazy, feckless scroungers on the take from hard-working people like them.
At risk of spoiling the fun, the truth is a little more prosaic. For one, Civitas gets to its 54 per cent figure by counting not only pensions and welfare payments but ‘benefits in kind’, i.e. the ‘imputed value’ of the NHS treatment, state education and social care each household receives. Civitas volunteers this but most people do not consult the methodologies of think tank reports. Most people will give the word ‘benefits’ its commonly used construction: welfare payments to the unemployed, those unable to work for health reasons or families who struggle to meet housing or other costs.
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