Happy cost of living crisis to one and all: here are some fun Jubilee facts to bring out at street parties

Darya Rustamova

|

3 June 2022

The royals cost the taxpayer £76.1m annually, officially. Last year, the sovereign grant reports show the monarchy cost us £87.5 million during 2020/21—a £18.1 million increase since 2019/20.

But there are a lot more costs to consider and Republic have done all the hard work to compile them. They estimate that, including analysis of hidden expenditure and expenses, the real cost of the monarchy to British taxpayers is around £345m every year.

The highest proportionate spend included in this is £106m a year on security for the royals.

Each “working royal” costs the taxpayer an average of about £19.1m a year.

In 2019, Charles did a total of 74.5 days work, or 521 hours. For this, he received a personal income of over £20m of state money. That’s an approximate rate of £38,000 per hour.

On top of that, the March 2021 budget showed £28 million of taxpayers’ money is being put towards this year’s Jubilee celebrations.

There will also be £12 million on a special book for primary schools about the Queen’s Jubilee—it’s not clear if this is part of the £28 million, or an added extra.

The additional bank holidays are said to bring an uplift to the economy by boosting spending. But the official impact assessment predicts “the final monetised impact is -£2.39 billion net present value for a Platinum Jubilee bank holiday in 2022.” According to the government, the best case scenario is a loss of anything between £2.21bn and £2.57bn. How fun.

Darya Rustamova

Subscribe to Freedom anarchist journal, sustain radical publishing and support independent media.

Share
Elisabeth windsor

Subscribe to Freedom anarchist journal, sustain radical publishing and support independent media.

SUBSCRIBE

AND DONATE

Latest

Events At

the Bookshop

Punk Spirit! book talk with author John Malkin

Friday, 8 May 2026

Freedom

Bookshop

Angel Alley
84b Whitechapel High St
London E1 7QX

Opening hours: 12pm to 6pm

Elisabeth windsor

Freedom Press

Browse over a century of anarchist commentary and reporting from the Freedom digital archive

EXPLORE THE

Archives