Baby boomers paid more in taxes than today’s millennials

THE claim that baby boomers are living the high life at the expense of millennials has been challenged by new research that shows they pay more in tax.

The study by the Office for National Statistics looked at the disposable income of the highest earner in about 5,000 families across eight decades to compare the tax contributions and beneficiaries of public spending in different generations.

People now aged 20-24 were net beneficiaries when comparing taxes and benefits, the study found, receiving £4,124 more than they paid in, while the generation born in the Fifties were net contributors when they were in their 20s and paid in £2,593 more than they took out.

The net contribution of the millennial generation, aged 25-34, fell to only £1,072 a year, much lower than the figure of £2,967 for their age group 40 years earlier. The present generation of over-65s take far less from the system relative to what they pay in taxes than in previous decades.