Numbers and Attitudes towards Welfare State Generosity

Abstract

Between pro-retrenchment politicians and segments of the media, exaggerated claims about the generous benefits enjoyed by those on welfare are relatively common. But to what extent, and under what conditions, can they actually shape attitudes towards welfare? This study explores these questions via a survey experiment conducted in the UK, examining: (1) the extent to which the value of the claimed figure matters; (2) if the presence of anchoring information about minimum wage income has an impact; and (3) whether these effects differ based on egalitarianism and political knowledge. Results suggest that increasing the size of the claimed figure decreases support in a broadly linear fashion, with anchoring information important only when (asserted) benefit levels are modestly above the minimum wage income. Egalitarianism, in turn, primarily matters when especially low figures are placed alongside information about minimum wage, while low-knowledge respondents were more susceptible to anchoring effects than high-knowledge ones.

What do stances on immigrants' welfare entitlement mean? Evidence from a correlational class analysis

“…Second, that there are different meanings behind stances on immigrants' entitlement to welfare implies that similar external stimuli, such as media messages and policy proposals or changes around welfare and immigration (both individually and combined), will be perceived and acted on differently by different segments of the public. In addition to their level of political trust (Garritzmann et al., 2023), the meaning of someone's stance on immigrants' entitlement to welfare likely moderates the link between information provision and, for instance, support for welfare sanctions (Kootstra & Roosma, 2018), welfare generosity (Jensen & Kevins, 2019), and a universal basic income (Jordan et al., 2022).…”

Mind the gap: Young people and welfare-state related knowledge in deservingness and welfare attitude research

“…These biases help explain why simple presentations of facts are unlikely to change knowledgelet alone attitudesregarding partisan, racial and ideologically-loaded topics (for example, Abrajano and Lajevardi, 2021;, and even if proper interventions change knowledge, this does not necessarily lead to changing attitudes (Green et al, 2011). Nevertheless, experimental studies also show that people can incorporate information to update their beliefs, group and issue attitudes as well as related policy support (Abrajano and Lajevardi, 2021;Jensen and Kevins, 2019;Kuziemko et al, 2015;Lawrence and Sides, 2014). Overall, this means that bidirectional causality is likely in the nexus.…”

“…An initial step could be conducting cross-sectional studies to test various plausible associations. Afterwards, scholars could implement survey experiments manipulating the potentially influential information (for example, Jensen and Kevins, 2019), preferably in a randomized block design, where participants are allocated to blocks based on their knowledge or misinformation (see Abrajano and Lajevardi, 2021). Also useful are instrumental variables (for example, Jaeger, 2008) or multiple measurements, for example, in panel designs (for example, Jaeger, 2006), difference-indifference designs (for example, Jerit and Barabas, 2017) and randomized-control trials.…”