Britain has spent £1.1 trillion more on welfare than infrastructure in the past 20 years, a think tank has found.
In a report published on Tuesday, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) said welfare had acted as an “anaesthetic that has kept areas of the country numbed during two decades of economic failure”.
The CSJ said the UK had spent £1.6 trillion on working-age benefits between 2006/7 and 2024/25, far outstripping public investment in transport, science and technology, economic development, housing and community amenities.
Ben Gregg, head of welfare at the think tank, said: “For decades, governments have tried to compensate struggling regions for economic decline rather than reverse it, using welfare to numb the pain instead of providing a reason to hope.”
Tuesday’s report, titled “State of Dependency”, found that between 1945 and 1979, the UK had spent around 4.5% of GDP on infrastructure and 2.5% on working-age welfare.
But those proportions had now reversed, with the country spending 5% of GDP on working-age benefits and 2.5% on infrastructure investment.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Government could get the welfare bill down by supporting more people into work in his speech at the Labour Party conference last month
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It added that the lack of investment was particularly acute in areas with high levels of worklessness – including areas of the North, the Midlands and South Wales where economic output per person had barely increased in two decades.
Mr Gregg added: “A Britain where everyone has a stake in prosperity is one where good jobs and thriving towns are within reach of every community.
“That is not achieved by writing a cheque and forgetting about people. It comes from investing in these places and removing the barriers that stop businesses doing the same.”
The report comes as Chancellor John Healey faces pressure from opposition parties to reduce welfare spending at his Budget on October 28.
In his speech at the Labour Party conference last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the Government could get the welfare bill down by supporting more people into work.
But he ruled out “crude cuts” to benefits, saying that should “never be the Labour way”.
A Government spokesperson said: “For too long, worklessness has been entrenched in too many communities, and people not given the opportunity to thrive.
“We are determined to get Britain working and boost growth in every postcode, including publishing the 10-year infrastructure strategy, increasing public investment by £120 billion to unlock private capital, and delivering reforms to planning, major infrastructure and regulation.
“We are also reforming the welfare system across the country by narrowing the gap between Universal Credit standard and health rates, restoring face-to-face assessments, and investing £3.5 billion in employment support whilst the Timms and Milburn Reviews will lay the foundation for sustainable reform.”