Introduction
The cost of living crisis is hitting the finances of British families hard: the Consumer Financial Confidence Index has dropped to the lowest score in a decade and inflation reached 5.5% in January.
But we are only at the beginning of this storm: the energy price cap is increasing by 54% in April 2022, and will increase by a further 52% in October 2022 if energy prices remain at current levels, while inflation is expected to peak at above 8% this year.
The 3.1% uprating in benefits, based on inflation rates in distant September 2021, looks to be disastrously dated, leading to significant reductions in the real income of low-income households.
Bright Blue’s Social security after Covid-19 project aims to develop a policy programme that strengthens the UK’s safety net in the long-term and wins the support of the public and policymakers from across the political spectrum. But given the scale and pressures of the current challenge, and the need for the Government to act quickly and decisively to protect the poorest in the year ahead, we are publishing this short piece detailing extracts of our original polling evidence, giving new insight into what the public thinks about the cost of living crisis.
Methodology
We polled a nationally representative sample of 2,008 UK adults, in partnership with Opinium. Within this overall sample, we also have unweighted subsets of those who have voted for the Conservatives (672), Labour (494) and Liberal Democrats (178) in the 2019 General Election.
Views on the cost of living crisis
Our polling illustrates that there is a clear expectation from the majority of the UK public that the benefit system helps to address the cost of living crisis, as shown in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Support of UK adults for statements on the role of government, by 2019 GE vote
| Total | Conservatives | Labour | Liberal Democrats | |
| Benefit payments should be sufficiently high to allow people to pay for their costs of living, such as housing payments, buying essential food and heating their homes | 72% | 68% | 83% | 80% |
| It is the government’s responsibility to ensure that all people have financial support to meet their basic needs | 67% | 55% | 83% | 77% |
Base: 2,008 UK adults
Overall, the public thinks that the government has a key role to play in maintaining standards of living for those on the lowest incomes: 72% of the UK public supports the idea that “benefit payments should be sufficiently high to allow people to pay for their costs of living, such as housing payments, buying essential food and heating their homes” and 67% of the public supports the idea that “it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that all people have financial support to meet their basic needs”.
These principles enjoy cross-party support: 83% of 2019 Labour voters support both statements. Meanwhile, while 2019 Conservative voters are less likely to agree, a majority still express support, with 68% supporting the idea that benefit payments should be sufficiently high and 55% supporting the idea that the government is responsible for ensuring people meet their basic needs.
Furthermore, there is widespread perception that the finances of vulnerable groups have become worse off since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, as illustrated in Table 2 below, which shows the net view (% of respondents who described the group as better off minus % of respondents who described the group as worse off)
Table 2: Net view of UK adults on whether the following groups have become worse or better off financially (better – worse) since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, by 2019 GE vote
| Total | Conservatives | Labour | Liberal Democrats | |
| Low-income working parents | -54% | -43% | -72% | -55% |
| Those on lower incomes | -53% | -41% | -73% | -58% |
| Those with long-term mental health problems | -51% | -45% | -68% | -51% |
| Those who care for people with long-term health problems | -50% | -45% | -65% | -48% |
| Those with long-term physical health problems | -51% | -43% | -63% | -49% |
| Unemployed people | -33% | -16% | -57% | -29% |
| Those on higher incomes | 27% | 23% | 34% | 46% |
Base: 2,008 UK adults
There is a common perception among the UK public that a wide range of vulnerable groups have become worse off financially since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, low-income working parents (-54%) and those on lower incomes generally (-53%) have the lowest net score among the whole UK population, though those with long-term health problems (-45%) and those who care for them (-43%) are also seen to be significantly worse off than before the pandemic.
While 2019 Labour voters are more likely to think vulnerable groups have become worse off, with those on lower incomes (-73%) and low-income working parents (-72%) receiving the lowest net scores, 2019 Conservative voters also on average share this downbeat assessment. Conservatives are more likely to think that vulnerable groups have become worse off than better off, especially those with long-term mental health problems (-45%), those who care for them (-45%) and low-income working parents (-43%).
But perceptions of the UK public are much more divided on whether a ‘typical benefit claimant’ receives sufficient or insufficient support from government with their regular expenses, as shown by Table 3 below.
Table 3: Perception of UK adults whether a ‘typical benefit claimant’ receives sufficient support from government to deal with the following regular expenses
| Less than sufficient | Sufficient | More than sufficient | Don’t know | ||
| Utility bills | Total | 43 % | 28 % | 9 % | 20 % |
| Conservatives | 33 % | 36 % | 12 % | 19 % | |
| Labour | 61 % | 21 % | 5 % | 13 % | |
| Liberal Democrats | 48 % | 23 % | 6 % | 24 % | |
| Food costs | Total | 38 % | 34 % | 8 % | 19 % |
| Conservatives | 26 % | 46 % | 13 % | 15 % | |
| Labour | 56 % | 29 % | 3 % | 12 % | |
| Liberal Democrats | 48 % | 27 % | 4 % | 22 % | |
| Housing costs | Total | 34 % | 35 % | 10 % | 21 % |
| Conservatives | 22 % | 47 % | 13 % | 17 % | |
| Labour | 54 % | 28 % | 4 % | 15 % | |
| Liberal Democrats | 42 % | 24 % | 9 % | 25 % | |
| Childcare costs | Total | 34 % | 30 % | 11 % | 25 % |
| Conservatives | 22 % | 40 % | 16 % | 23 % | |
| Labour | 54 % | 24 % | 6 % | 16 % | |
| Liberal Democrats | 42 % | 25 % | 7 % | 26 % |
Base: 2,008 UK adults
As shown by Table 3, UK adults perceive benefit payments as either less than sufficient or sufficient at roughly equal rates, with a significant proportion also reporting ‘don’t know’. Government support with utility bills is the most likely to be seen as less than sufficient (43%), while support with housing costs is the most likely to be seen as sufficient (35%).
For all types of costs polled, 2019 Conservative voters are most likely to see benefit payments as sufficient, while 2019 Labour voters are most likely to see them as insufficient. Both 2019 Conservative (33%) and 2019 Labour (61%) voters are the most likely to see support with utility bills as less than sufficient out of all costs polled, but the large gap shows that Conservative voters are much less likely to think that the support is less than sufficient.
Conclusion
Our polling identifies that the UK public, across political divides, supports the idea that benefit payments need to be sufficiently high to allow people to pay for their costs of living, and that the financial support provided by the government needs to meet their basic needs. Furthermore, they believe that the pandemic has made vulnerable people financially worse off.
But where there is disagreement amongst the public is whether current benefit payments for different types of costs are sufficient to meet needs of a “typical benefit claimant”
Given the scale of the cost of living crisis, without further government intervention beyond what was announced in the 2021 Spring Statement, many more households are likely to struggle and become much poorer. The Household Support Fund, which provides low-income households with ad-hoc grants or vouchers through their local authority, is insufficient for the scale of the crisis, and to meaningfully help those on low incomes, the Government should bring forward the next uprating of benefits into this year, and match the increase in the Warm Home Discount to the rise in energy prices.
[Image: Pixabay]
