What was claimed
The population of Britain is 51 million.
Our verdict
The population of the UK in mid-2018 was 66.4 million.
The figures in this post give an inaccurate view of Britain
11 February 2020
What was claimed
21 million people in Britain are retired.
Our verdict
We don’t know for certain but a maximum of around 11.8 million people in the UK are retired.
What was claimed
19 million people are at school.
Our verdict
The number of school pupils in the UK is around 10 million.
What was claimed
Two million people are unemployed.
Our verdict
1.3 million people are unemployed in the UK.
What was claimed
Four million people are employed by the government.
Our verdict
5.4 million people were recorded as working in the public sector across the UK in September 2019, of which 3.2 million are employed by central government.
What was claimed
Three million people work in local counties and boroughs.
Our verdict
Two million people were recorded as working in local government across the UK in September 2019.
What was claimed
One million people are in the armed forces.
Our verdict
There are around 193,000 UK armed forces personnel, of which 132,000 are full-time trained personnel.
What was claimed
620,000 people are in hospital.
Our verdict
There is no clear measurement of how many people are in hospital at one time, however, figures that give an indication are significantly lower than this.
What was claimed
379,998 people are in prison.
Our verdict
The prison population of the UK was 92,500 in 2018.
What was claimed
The British workforce is two people.
Our verdict
32 million people were estimated to be in work in 2019.
A Facebook post that makes a series of claims about the British population has been shared by multiple accounts hundreds of times.
The post is obviously intended to be humorous and has been understood as such by most of the commenters. It’s also been circulating online for decades.
However, some readers do seem to have taken the post seriously so, to set the record straight, all the figures in the post are inaccurate.
The post claims that the population of the UK is 51 million. In mid-2018 the population was 66.4 million.
The post claims that 21 million people in Britain are retired. We don’t know the exact figure but it isn’t this high.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that there are 10.7 million people in the UK aged 65 or above who are “economically inactive” (meaning they are not working or seeking work due to things like retirement and ill health).
Also, there are 1.1 million people aged under 65 who have taken early retirement. That means there is a maximum of 11.8 million retired people in the UK.
The post says that 19 million people are in school when it’s actually around 10 million and it also says that there are two million unemployed people when there are 1.3 million.
The post claims that four million people are employed by the government and that three million are employed by counties and borough councils. 5.4 million people are employed in the public sector, of which 3.2 million are employed by central government and two million by local government.
The post also claims that there are one million people in Britain’s armed forces which is a big exaggeration—there are around 193,000 personnel in the armed forces, of which 132,000 are full-time trained personnel.
The post claims 620,000 people are in hospital, but statistics aren’t published on this so there’s no way of knowing for sure. What we can say is that on 113,000 overnight beds and 11,000 day-only beds were occupied in the English NHS according to the latest data from April to June 2019.
The post claims that there are 379,998 people in prison. The figure is actually much lower, with 92,500 people recorded in prison in 2018.
The post then humorously claims this means the workforce in the UK is two people; in September to November 2019 the ONS recorded just over 32 million people in employment in the UK, just under half of the population.