Solidarity in a crisis? Trends in attitudes to benefits during COVID-19

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, and (ii) a nationally representative survey we conducted in June 2021.We found that COVID-19 prompted little change in public welfare attitudes. Attitudes did become slightly more generous during…