Britons think tackling the rising cost of living should be the Government’s main priority
As part of our research we asked Britons to select their three most important priorities for the UK Government to tackle to improve public life in the UK. Consistently, a majority select 'reducing the cost of living for households' in their top three, placing this considerably higher than all other actions.
Britons overwhelmingly think tackling the rising cost of living should be the biggest priority for the government versus individual alternative priorities too. When presented as one of two options and asked to choose which should be the bigger priority, a majority of the public opt for tackling the cost of living in every instance.
Strikingly, the responses have changed since we first asked the question. In February, some policy areas were seen as more important that the cost of living - ‘improving social care for the elderly’ by 53 to 37 per cent, while ‘tackling NHS waiting lists’ was only narrowly regarded as a lesser priority 45 to 44 per cent.
Similarly, there was a lot of variety at a subgroup level, with 18-24 saying preventing racism and climate change are a bigger priority than the cost of living, and those over 45 saying the same for social care, the NHS, and Ukraine.
Cost of living has grown in importance during 2022, and now by September being seen relatively as the biggest government priority for almost all subgroups - with the exception of over-65s, prioritising social care, NHS waiting lists, and reducing illegal immigration.
When asked about specific actions the Government should take in response to people struggling to pay their energy bills this year, Britons are most likely to say the Government should:
In the policy debates on how best to respond to the rising cost of living, there is disagreement as to whether the Government should target measures to the poorest households who will struggle most, or whether they should support families and households across the country with more universal responses.
This divide featured prominently in the criticisms of the Energy Price Guarantee, where the untargeted nature of its support meant it benefitted both richer and poorer households6.
The British public are similarly conflicted, with a slim margin preferring the Government to use targeted measures to help the hardest-hit households (49 per cent) over the government helping everyone equally (42 per cent). Though we often find many more people than might be expected would consider themselves to be among the “hardest hit”.
This also perhaps reflects the fact that, while the rising cost of living has disproportionate impacts on the poorest, most in the UK are affected by it – even if you are not having to choose between ‘heating and eating’, you are still likely to be budgeting more, eating out less, and not going on holiday.
Even when discussing how to tackle the rising cost of living itself, the more specific the framing, the more likely the proposition is to attract public support. When asked what could be done to make Britain fairer, just nine per cent selected, ‘increase benefits payments’ in June 2021 but when asked whether ‘reinstating the £20 per week increase to Universal Credit’ would make Britain fairer in November 2021, support rose to 24 per cent.
The lesson for those trying to engage the public on issues of inequality is that tangible frames matter. The more inequality is tied to its impacts on people’s everyday lives, the stronger the public consensus on inequality (and what should be done about it) will become.
