Welfare Spending: Some Facts

The chart below is taken from the excellent UK Public Spending website.

It shows welfare spending as a percentage of GDP since 1950. The welfare spending that George Osborne is about to slash, that Labour ran up in order to build a “client state” and which “we can no longer afford”.

In 1997 welfare spending as percentage of GDP was 7.76% , in 2010 (despite a recession and higher unemployment) it is 7.26% – lower than in any year 1979 to 1997.

This is being cut, as Douglas Alexander argues, for political reasons. As Don Paskini notes, it will hit the low paid hard.