According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the percentage was 52.6% for the year ending March 2023, marking the third consecutive year that it exceeded 50%. It comes after the Prime Minister pledged "sweeping changes" and as Labour struggles to repeal the £137 billion welfare package.In the fiscal year 2020–2021, the percentage of households that received more benefits than taxes reached a record high of 55%. The following year, it dropped to 53.6%, and in 2022–2023, it dropped to 52.6%. It probably reflects the enormous amounts of money the government spent to help homes first during the pandemic and later as energy prices skyrocketed due to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.Before the pandemic the share had previously been above 50 per cent over four years from 2009 to 2013 and again in 2018/19,Daily Dazzling Dawn confirmed. 

The figure had hovered around 40 per cent in the 1980s and 1990s before the dependence on welfare trended higher in the 2000s and 2010s.

The 35 million who received more benefits than they paid in taxes included more than 10 million retired people - or 85 per cent.But it also included nearly 25 million, or 45 per cent, of those who were not retired.

That is likely partly to reflect the scourge of worklessness across the country.The number of people of working age who are neither in employment nor looking for work stands at more than 9.3 million or more than a fifth of the population.

That includes a near-record 2.8 million classed as long-term sick as well as students and those who look after the family or home.

In a recent article for the Mail on Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer promised to try to tame the huge bill for welfare benefits - including a blitz on cheats and those who ‘game the system’.

Last month, Labour ministers pledged a drive to ‘get Britain working again’ and achieve an ‘ambitious’ target of getting another two million people into jobs - but were accused of putting off urgently needed reforms to cure sicknote Britain.

The government published a White Paper focused on employment support, including a revamp of Jobcentres and extra NHS appointments in unemployment hotspots.

But a shake-up of the benefits system and a crackdown on welfare spending will not take place for months with plans not even published until 2025.

Former pensions minister Ros Altmann said: ‘It certainly suggests that there is a disproportionate burden on those in society who pay tax.’