Welfare & Pensions
Two of the biggest lines in government spending, and two of the most misunderstood. Our overview splits them (£224.6bn Pensions, £188.0bn Welfare) because that's how PESA categorises them — but the commonly-quoted £333bn 'welfare bill' figure in the news combines them differently, and a viral claim about it being higher than income tax for 'the first time ever' turned out to be false.
How this actually works
The DWP's official 'total welfare spending' figure (£333.7bn for 2025/26) bundles together everything from the State Pension to Universal Credit to disability benefits into one number — it's genuinely a welfare/social security spending measure, and it does include pensions. Our overview page splits these apart differently: 'Pensions' (£224.6bn) covers the State Pension plus civil service and other public-sector pensions, while 'Welfare' (£188.0bn) covers everything else — working-age benefits, disability support, Universal Credit. Add our two categories together and you get £412.6bn, which is higher than DWP's £333.7bn figure specifically because our 'Pensions' bucket includes public-sector employee pensions (paid to retired civil servants, teachers, NHS staff, etc.) that aren't part of the DWP's welfare/social-security system at all — those are a completely separate kind of government spending, closer to deferred employee pay than a benefit.
Other figures you'll see reported
You'll see different numbers for this in different places. Here's why, so you're not left thinking one of them is simply wrong.
Includes the State Pension, Pension Credit, and all working-age/disability benefits. This is the figure behind the "welfare exceeds income tax" headlines.
Higher than the DWP figure because it also includes civil service and other public-sector pensions, which the DWP welfare measure doesn't count.
A slightly different classification again, closest to DWP's figure but not identical due to differences in what counts as "social protection" versus narrower "welfare".
The controversy
In April 2026, multiple outlets and politicians reported that UK welfare spending (£333bn) had overtaken income tax receipts (£331bn) — accurately, per the OBR's March 2026 outlook. But a widely repeated framing — including a Conservative "Alternative King's Speech" claim that this was happening "for the first time ever" — was checked by Full Fact and independently confirmed false by the IFS. Welfare spending, which includes the State Pension, has actually exceeded income tax receipts in every year for at least the last 13 years, since 2013/14. The gap narrowed sharply in 2025/26, and OBR forecasts show the position reversing in 2026/27 — meaning income tax is expected to overtake welfare spending again almost immediately, for the first time since 2013/14. Both things are simultaneously true: welfare genuinely did exceed income tax in the most recent full year measured, and the "unprecedented crisis" framing attached to that fact by some commentators is not supported by the longer-run data.