Public attitudes to those on benefits remain harsh, but may be softening. The 2015 edition of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey has found that 32% of the population agree that “many people on social security don’t really deserve any help”. This is a fall, however, from 2005, when 40% agreed.
Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, recently warned the Tories that the party had for too long addressed the poor with “fingers wagging”, and that they must show their reforms are driven by “fairness, opportunity, and compassion”. This will be particularly important because the Tories plan to find £12bn in savings from the overall benefits bill in a future government. Labour’s welfare plans include barring unemployed people who lack basic skills from accessing benefits unless they take up training.
Church leaders, meanwhile, have welcomed a call by MPs for an urgent review of the benefits sanctions system. How have the overall attitudes to benefits claimants of different religious groups changed over time?
As the graph shows, from 2000 to 2012 a significant minority within each group agreed that “many people on social security don’t really deserve any help”. But the only time at least half of respondents in a group supported the statement was in 2003, when 50% of Anglican respondents to the BSA survey agreed. Among the population as a whole 38% agreed that year.
There were significant fluctuations over the period in the attitudes of different groups. In 2006 all groups except those of non-Christian faiths showed a significant decrease in support for the statement, and thus increase in sympathy for those who get social security, compared to the previous year. The largest change was among Catholics, falling from 45% agreement in 2005 to 28% in 2006.
But by 2012 support for the statement had risen to a few points above 2000 levels in all groups but those of minority religions, who in 2012 showed a slight decrease in agreement levels compared to 2000.
Anglicans were consistently the most likely group to agree with the statement, and they were consistently above the agreement level from the population as a whole. In 2012, for example, 40% of Anglicans agreed with the statement, whereas among the population as a whole 35% did.
Those of non-Christian faiths tended to be least sceptical of those who get social security. In 2012, for example, only 24% agreed with the statement. However, wide fluctuations in their responses may have been influenced by the small sample size for the group.
The attitudes of Anglicans as an overall group on this issue may be at odds with the views of its senior clergy. It remains to be seen what the impact will be of the Anglican bishops’ pre-election letter, which warns against the “stirring up” of resentment against both welfare claimants and “bankers and oligarchs”.
This socio-political statement is one of several asked by the BSA survey to determine where groups sit on the ‘Welfarist-Individualist’ axis:
• The welfare state encourages people to stop helping each other
• The government should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, even if it leads to higher taxes
• Around here, most unemployed people could find a job if they really wanted one
• Many people who get social security don’t really deserve any help
• If welfare benefits weren’t so generous, people would learn to stand on their own two feet
• Cutting welfare benefits would damage too many people’s lives
• The creation of the welfare state is one of Britain’s proudest achievements
See where each group sits on the overall Welfarist-Individualist axis here
This snippet taken from our report on Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? (p. 104).
See the full report here and an Executive Summary here for further analysis of voting behaviour and religious identity.
Data source: British Social Attitudes 2000-2012
Individual traditions within the 'Other Christian' and 'Other religion' categories are grouped together within the BSA data due to small sample sizes.
