de Vries, R, Baumberg Geiger, B, Scullion, LC 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5766-3241, Summers, K, Edmiston, D, ingold, J, Robertshaw, D and Young, D
2021,
Solidarity in a crisis? Trends in attitudes to benefits during COVID-19
, Project Report,
University of Salford.
Abstract
There were good reasons to think COVID-19 would increase public support
for welfare: it was a time of apparent increased solidarity in the face of a
collective crisis; of clearly ‘deserving’ claimants; and of increases in direct
experiences of the benefits system. And yet, the limited evidence collected
so far suggests that attitudes have not changed.
In this report, we explain this puzzle in the UK, using two datasets which are uniquely
suited to the challenge: (i) bimonthly data collected by YouGov from 2019-2021,
which provides comparable, high-resolution information on attitude changes across
the pandemic and (ii) a nationally representative survey we conducted as part of the
Welfare at a (Social) Distance project in June 2021, which explored COVID-19-related
attitudes in unique detail.
We found that COVID-19 prompted little change in public welfare attitudes. Attitudes
did become slightly more generous during the first wave of the pandemic, only to
rebound quickly in the Summer of 2020. The second COVID wave prompted another
small increase in generosity. However, this appears unlikely to have endured.
Overall, comparing May 2021 with the pre-pandemic period, the public were less
anti-welfare than before – but only slightly. The extent of the overall change from
pre-pandemic to June 2021 differs between measures (from six percentage points for
whether people out of work get too much support; to no change in whether benefit
conditions are strict enough), and is stronger for Conservative voters than Labour
voters. In the context of a considerable softening in attitudes 2013-19, however,
all of the pandemic-associated changes are small.
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