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Rachel Reeves will raise taxes today to fund handouts worth thousands of pounds to Britain's biggest jobless families.
Official figures show the Chancellor's flagship Budget plan to scrap the two-child benefit cap will be worth more than £14,000 a year each to 18,000 low-income families with six or more children.
The move comes as a study by the Adam Smith Institute finds the average earner will see almost £2,000 of their taxes go towards Britain's spiralling benefits bill this year.
Ms Reeves is expected to hike taxes by around £25 billion today as she blames the Conservatives, Brexit and Donald Trump's tariffs for knocking the economy off course.
But she will also take a series of measures that will increase the bloated welfare bill, including scrapping the two-child cap at a cost of £3.5 billion a year.
The benefit cap limits means-tested benefits such as universal credit and child tax credit payments to the first two children, costing affected families a typical £3,455 in lost benefits for each additional child.
Figures produced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that 470,000 families are now affected by the policy.
About 59 per cent have at least one adult in work, leaving almost 200,000 in which no-one has a job.
Almost two-thirds (297,000) have three children, while a quarter (117,000) have four. A further 37,000 affected families have five children, while 18,260 are listed as having 'six or more'.
Tory policy chief Neil O'Brien said those with six or more children were in line for a windfall worth more than £14,000 a year.
He added: 'Last year the Chancellor said lifting the cap was unaffordable but Labour MPs have worked out she can be pushed around.
'It means you are going to see some families receiving very large sums from the taxpayer, while the Chancellor is saying it is necessary to raise taxes on everyone else.
'It blows a hole in her argument that she has no choice but to raise taxes because of Brexit or the Tories or the Battle of Hastings. In fact, it shows she is quite happy to raise taxes to spend billions more on benefits.'
Critics of the cap claim it has worsened child poverty, and scrapping it has become an article of faith for many Labour MPs. But the potential rise in benefits is so large that some could be left with little incentive to work.
At present, a single parent with three children is eligible for a total of £20,978. When the cap is lifted this could rise to £24,491 – well in excess of the £21,807 take-home pay of someone working a 40-hour week on the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, analysis by the Adam Smith Institute found that workers earning the median salary will spend more on welfare – £1,970 – than any other item of public spending, as increasing numbers receive sickness benefits under Labour. Employees on £39,039 will also contribute more than £1,000 towards the running of the NHS this year.
The think-tank estimates that another £659 of the average earner's income tax and National Insurance contributions will go on debt interest payments.