Until the ‘benefit scrounger’ narrative is finally dismantled, facts will continue to take a back seat to headlines.
Following the government’s controversial welfare concessions last week, the right-wing media has been confronted with uncomfortable truths about welfare spending in the UK. A chart has been widely shared on social media confirms that the UK is far from being a high spender when it comes to social spending.
According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the UK spent 10.9 percent of its GDP on welfare in 2023 and 10.8 percent of its GDP on welfare in 2024, well below many European nations, when including pensions. By contrast, Finland spent 25.7 percent, Austria 21.4 percent, and Italy 21.1 percent, according to the latest 2023 figures from the European Commission. Even when comparing health and disability benefits specifically, the UK remains just above the EU average at 3.2 percent of GDP, just above the EU average of 2.8 percent.
These figures highlight how misleading the right-wing narrative has been. For years, conservative media outlets and politicians have painted benefit claimants as “scroungers” and “cheats.” Campaigns like the Sun’s infamous ‘Beat the Cheat’ campaignin 2012 encouraged readers to report neighbours to a benefit fraud hotline under the guise of patriotism. In 2016, the then chancellor George Osborne’s £4.4bn cuts to disability benefits triggered the resignation of work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, yet the demonisation of claimants continued.
In total, the UK’s 2024/25 welfare bill amounts to £303.3 billion, which is 23.8 percent of the government’s annual budget. Much of this goes toward pensions and support for the elderly, such as attendance and housing benefits. Just £117.6 billion, or about 4.2 percent of GDP, is allocated to working-age benefits.
The renewed focus on welfare spending follows the fallout from Labour’s recent benefit cuts U-turn, which saw a key plank of its reform programme abandoned amid a backlash. Keir Starmer has argued that reform is necessary, pointing to rising costs, with disability and long-term sickness benefits alone projected to reach £70bn by 2030, with claimant numbers rising from 2.8 million to 4 million.
Still, trade unions, charities, and left-wing MPs have denounced the proposals as “immoral,” warning they will hit the most vulnerable and deepen poverty. Starmer insists the severely disabled will be protected but added that he won’t “stand back and do nothing while millions—especially young people—become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system.”
That hasn’t stopped the right-wing media from going on the offensive. Following Labour’s U-turn, the Daily Mail ran with the alarmist headline: “Disability claims ‘set to soar by more than a million’ before the next election after Labour’s U-turn… as Tories warn it could lead to the collapse of the entire benefit system.”
Meanwhile, social media users have pushed back. One X user wrote:
“The UK spends 10.8% of GDP on welfare while France spends 23.8% and Finland spends 25.7% Just remember that when you see #GBNews, the #Mail and #Sun and the likes of #Harwood, #Tominey and #Pearson demanding benefit cuts.”
As Labour walks the political tightrope between economic responsibility and social justice, one thing remains clear, no amount of reform will ever satisfy a media machine built on myths. Until the ‘benefit scrounger’ narrative is finally dismantled, facts will continue to take a back seat to headlines.
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