While 48% of Britons feel that qualifications for benefits are not strict enough, few believe main recipients of welfare are receiving too much support
The question of welfare benefits and those on it has been a perennial issue in British politics for years. Some have argued that the growing welfare bill needs to be reduced, including by, as the government recently announced, tackling alleged benefits fraud. Others have seen reforms to many welfare benefits in the last few decades as removing necessary financial support for the least well-off, accusing those who have supported the cuts of fuelling negative stereotypes of those on benefits. But what do Britons actually think of welfare today?
When thinking about welfare recipients generally, six in ten Britons (59%) have neither a positive nor negative opinion of them, with this true of 65% of Labour voters, 60% of Lib Dem voters, 56% of Conservatives and 49% of Reform UK voters.
Nonetheless, more than a quarter of the public (27%) hold a negative opinion of those who receive benefits, clearly outnumbering the one in eight Britons (12%) who say they generally have a positive opinion of welfare recipients. Even among Labour voters, who are the least unfavourable towards those on benefits, the 16% with a positive view does not outweigh the 18% with a negative view.
Among those who voted for more right-wing parties in July, disapproval towards those on welfare is more widespread, with 38% of Conservatives and 44% of Reform UK voters holding a negative view of benefits recipients.
Do Britons see those on benefits as deserving?
Only 9% of Britons believe that all or almost all users of the benefits system are genuinely in need, with this widening to just half of the public (49%) who believe that at least the majority of people on benefits are deserving of help. This is against four in ten Britons (39%) who feel that half of welfare recipients or less are genuine claimants.
Labour and Lib Dem voters tend to be less sceptical, with around two thirds (63-67%) believing that at least the majority of welfare recipients are genuine, something true of just 31% of Conservatives and 26% of Reform UK voters.
A belief that many of those on benefits are undeserving naturally translates into a belief that the existing qualifications for benefits are not strict enough, a view held by around half of Britons (48%). This compares to only around a quarter (27%) who feel that the current regime is too strict in determining who is eligible and just one in ten (10%) who feel the current welfare system gets the balance right.
Again, it is Conservative and Reform UK voters who are most likely to see the existing system as flawed, with around seven in ten of both groups (69-72%) believing that benefits requirements are not strict enough. While a third of Labour voters (33%) are similarly of the view that welfare eligibility is too loose, nearly four in ten (38%) see the current rules as too strict.
And this sceptical attitude towards welfare recipients is growing, with YouGov tracker data showing that as recently as April 2022, the proportions of Britons believing welfare qualifications were too strict and believing they were not strict enough were level on 37%.
What do Britons think about different types of welfare recipients?
But while the public might tend towards scepticism when thinking of welfare recipients as a whole, this is less apparent when looking individually at the main different groups that the benefit system supports.
Around half of Britons think that people over 65 (53%) and those with a disability (48%) receive too little support, against just 6-7% believing such groups receive too much support from the benefit system. A similar picture is true with those on low incomes or in low-paid work, with four in ten Britons (40-41%) seeing them as not receiving enough benefits, compared to 10-13% who feel they are getting too many.
There is less sympathy for people out of work, but even then, only a quarter of Britons (24%) feel they are receiving too much in benefits, roughly the same proportion (26%) as those who feel the unemployed are receiving too little support from the welfare state.
However, one finding from the survey is that the majority of the public don’t actually recognise the largest group of welfare claimants as such. Despite pensions being defined as a benefit in law, just 17% of Britons believe recipients of the state pension (which makes up 42% of the welfare bill) to be claiming a welfare benefit – falling to just 7% among the over-65s.
See the full results here and here
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Photo: Getty
