David Cameron received a pre-election boost when the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) announced that average household incomes in 2014-15 are back to where they were in 2007-08, before the financial crash.

But on closer inspection, the IFS conclusions are not all rosy. Living standards have risen more slowly than after previous recessions, as a result of weak growth in earnings for those in work, tax increases and benefit cuts. IFS director Paul Johnson found it “astonishing actually that seven years later incomes are still no higher than they were pre-recession and indeed for working-age households they're still a bit below where they were pre-recession.”

Public perceptions of economic inequality tell their own story. The 2015 edition of the British Social Attitudes survey found that 60% of the population agree with the statement “Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth” – rising to 72% of Labour supporters and falling to 41% of Tory supporters.

How far did different religious groups agree that with this statement from 2000 to 2012?

Within all groups, a majority (often significant) agreed with this statement each year – except for those of non-Christian faiths, who showed a 48% agreement level in 2001. In each year most groups showed agreement levels around the 55-65% range.

2004 saw a dip in support for the statement among most groups – but after that agreement levels gradually climbed again.

People from non-Christian traditions and Catholics were the most likely to agree over the period. Often their support for the statement was slightly above average. In 2009, for example, while 60% of the total population agreed with the statement, 67% of Catholics and those of minority faiths did, compared to 56% of Anglicans. (It should be noted that big fluctuation in the responses of those from minority faiths may have been influenced by the group’s small sample size).

Anglicans and Nonconformist Christians tended to be the most sceptical of the statement – though as with other groups at least 50% of these categories agreed with it each year. Anglican agreement was close to (often just under) the attitudes of the population as a whole.

This socio-political statement is one of several asked by the BSA survey to determine where groups sit on the 'Left-Right' axis:

• Big business benefits owners at the expense of workers

• Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance

• Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well off

• Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth

• There is one law for the rich and one for the poor 

See where each group sits on the overall Left-Right axis here